Evaluating HP Integrity's Systems Architecture — Itanium's Not The Differentiator

During the past several years, both the business and competitive technology environment for HP Integrity business has indeed changed, and yet, HP's two most challenging Unix systems adversaries — Sun Microsystems and IBM — are still on the BAFO ("best and final offer") shortlist for the most demanding technical and commercial application enterprise computing deployments. HP has had to contend not only with the strong virtualization stack and performance capabilities from IBM's System p, but also with a rehabilitated Sun Solaris/SPARC effort, most notably catalyzed by Sun's success with its T1000 and T2000 multicore offerings in both the entry net-edge and midrange server segments. Nevertheless, Forrester believes that many CTOs are now reconsidering HP's Integrity architectural feature/benefits — dismissing last year's concerns over Intel's (and consequently HP's) delay in getting a stronger Montecito-based Itanium 2 offering out in the market. While the competitive pressure from IBM and Sun will remain unabated, HP's Integrity systems business has returned in its previous capacity as a more consistent IT shortlist contender.