With economic downturn, Dell, HP cut U.S. server prices

Nice opportunity to get in on some immediate deals.

In a response to the U.S. recession, IT hardware vendors like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. have responded by reducing hardware prices. Conversely, Europe and other markets have begun to see server prices increase because of currency exchange fluctuations.

Take, for instance, Dell; the company recently reduced its U.S. hardware prices almost across the board, according to Mason Reay, the vice president of Dell marketing operations. And during the last quarter, by cutting prices, Dell has exceeded earnings expectations .

SearchDataCenter article

Please don't hug the servers

Here's an old problem rearing its head on a new technology platform.

Virtual servers are not free, but some users are treating them that way. It's so easy and inexpensive to provision new virtual servers these days that users are asking for them for all sorts of temporary applications - and then not telling anyone when they're done with them. At one point the practice became common enough at Qualcomm that IT jokingly coined a term for people who were sitting on idle virtual server capacity: Server huggers.

ComputerWorld article