Celebrate 35 years of innovation

by Susan Twombly, June 2007

In the early 1970s, the slide rule ruled. Then something happened: HP introduced the world's first scientific pocket calculator, the HP-35. Now, 35 years later, the legend continues.

Join the celebration » Watch videos, download screensavers and wallpaper and more. » Cast a vote for your favorite video in the HP Calculator Casting Call Contest! Hurry, voting ends July 9. » Join the HP Calculator Club for members-only benefits.

Join us as we revisit a few milestones in HP's calculator history to celebrate 35 years of calculator innovation. Become a member of our new HP Calculator Club and vote for your favorite video in the HP Calculator Casting Call Contest. Read on to find out more.

Good things come in small packages. Weighing in at just nine ounces, this small HP-35 handheld calculator made a big impact on scientists and engineers. In fact, in 2000, Forbes ASAP named the HP-35 as one of the 20 "all time products" that have changed the world. As the company's first consumer electronics product, it also changed the course of HP's history.

A stroke of genius. With keystroke programmability, some deemed 1974's HP-65 the world's first handheld computer. Small magnetic cards held calculator programs that could be entered and re-entered to run again.

It slices, it dices. In 1977, the HP-01 Wrist Instrument combined a digital wristwatch, calculator and personal calendar all in one. Performing more than three-dozen functions, the HP-01 showcased HP's miniaturization excellence in a big way.

Earning a space in history. The HP-41C became the first programmable, alphanumeric handheld calculator in 1979. It was also the first flight-critical calculator used by NASA to land the space shuttle, without contacting the ground crew. According the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Sally Ride and several other astronauts used the HP-41C on a total of nine shuttle missions.

Calculated innovation » HP 50g graphing calculator: The ultimate graphing calculator for surveying, engineering, math and science professionals and students. » HP 12c Platinum 25th Anniversary Edition Financial Calculator: A time-tested performer, the HP 12c has an easy-to-use layout, one-line LCD display and efficient RPN data entry. » HP 33s Scientific Calculator: Delivers the ultimate in accuracy, functionality, and dependability. » Learn about more HP calculators

Turning the calculator industry around. In the early 1980s, HP engineers were tasked with creating another pocket-sized calculator, this time for financial applications. It had to be reliable and have a long battery life.

The HP-12C Programmable Financial Calculator fit the bill and changed the look and feel of calculators of the day with its signature horizontal layout. As HP's longest-selling calculator, the HP-12 looks just as it did 25 years ago.

Way ahead of its time. Back in 1989, the HP-48SX was the first calculator with two-way infrared communication between two calculators. Today, some calculators still rely on a cable to communicate.

These are only a few HP innovations. Read HP Celebrates 35 Years of Handheld Calculator Innovation to find out more.

Welcome to the club

There's one thing true about many HP calculator users: They're loyal! Once they pick up an HP Calculator, many become avid fans. And what better way to reward that loyalty than with a club you can call your own: The new HP Calculator Club. Anyone who owns an HP calculator can join. Just answer a few simple questions and you can have access to many things only available to club members, including:

Calculator games and Aplets. Learn how to create your own custom Aplets or simply download some ready-made ones.

PC/Mac screensavers and wallpaper. Customize your computers with HP calculator screensavers and backgrounds.

HP discounts and special offers. Access discounts and special offers on HP calculators and other HP products.

HP calculator fonts. Create learning modules and other teaching tools.

How do I create custom programs on my HP calculator? That's just one of the many topics you may find on the HP Calculator Forum.

Custom calculator pouches. Personalize your calculator with a custom pouch, available in a variety of colors and styles.

HP calculator forum. Ask questions, share knowledge and chat with other Calculator Club members.

Cast your vote!

The deadline has passed, but the fun continues. We had a great response to our "HP Calculator Casting Call" Contest. As part of this nationwide competition, we invited entrants to submit short videos that captured their personal experiences and emotions towards their HP calculators.

And the winner is … » Cast your vote for the Voter's Choice Award today! Hurry, voting ends July 9. » Read more about the HP Calculator Casting Call contest

We laughed, we cried, we picked eight finalists across four categories: best actor, best actress, best screenplay and best technical film. Each finalist in each award category will win an all-expenses paid trip to Hollywood, Calif., to participate in the HP Golden Calculator Awards ceremony on July 12, 2007.

But they also get a chance to win the Voter's Choice Award — and that's where you come in! We've posted the winning entries for you to view and vote on. The winner, which will be announced at the Golden Calculator Awards ceremony, will take home an HP 50-inch High-Definition Plasma TV.

Thanks for 35 great years!

Consolidate and conquer storage problems

by Susan Twombly, July 2007

When data growth turns into data glut, you've got a storage problem. Chances are, you've got performance and productivity problems, too, along with skyrocketing cost and complexity as you try to wrestle control over data stores.

The answer for many companies today is storage consolidation: standardizing and simplifying the storage environment to reduce complexity, increase agility and boost efficiency.

Read on to find out how these HP customers consolidated storage to conquer their worst data storage problems.

» Hear and see more storage consolidation successes in the HP video 'The art of consolidation: Painted by our customers.'

Increasing application performance

Tektronix Challenge: Application performance declined as data stores grew. Solution: Worldwide data archive solution with HP StorageWorks Reference Information Manager (RIM) for Databases. Result: 40 percent performance increase. » Read the full case study (PDF file) » HP application consolidation solutions » HP StorageWorks RIM for Databases

When large application databases put performance at risk, consolidating data to near or online archives can greatly increase service levels.

For example, an HP archiving solution at Tektronix, Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon helps the company manage data growth, improve application performance and meet compliance requirements in 29 countries.

Tektronix provides test, measurement and monitoring solutions for the communications, computer and semiconductor industries — as well as military/aerospace, consumer electronics, education and a broad range of other industries worldwide.. When the company went live with a single global instance of Oracle applications, its production database was only 60 GB. Despite tuning and hardware upgrades, the database quickly grew by about 1.25 GB per month. Application performance suffered, threatening the productivity of nearly 800 worldwide users.

Today, an aggressive purge schedule and an online archiving environment — based on HP StorageWorks Reference Information Manager (RIM) for Databases — saves disk space and maximizes application performance. In fact, disk space for accounts receivable dropped by 48 percent, while application performance jumped by 40 percent.

RIM for Databases also helps keep Tektronix ready for changing international regulations around financial reporting. In fact, when Congress mandated Sarbanes-Oxley, the company's transaction retention policies were already in compliance.

Backing up for compliance and protection

SA Eagle Challenge: Unreliable data backup. Solution: Consolidated backups to an HP StorageWorks 6000 Virtual Tape Library. Result: Increased backup success rates from 98.32 percent to 99.99 percent. » Read the full case study (PDF file) » HP backup consolidation solutions » HP StorageWorks 6000 Virtual Tape Library System » ECI book club (PDF file)

Consolidating backup can cut time and costs and provide a robust solution for business continuity.

Consider SA Eagle, South Africa's fourth-largest short-term insurer — an industry known for massive volumes of documentation and strict regulations around its management.

At one time, several different systems provided overnight backups for four data centers. With 93 separate backup operations a day, they didn't always complete by morning and, on average, at least one backup failed each day.

Today, SA Eagle uses virtual tape technology with an HP StorageWorks 6000 Virtual Library System to accelerate backup — improving backup success rates from 98.32 to 99.99 percent. They not only meet regulatory requirements for disaster recovery, they reduce tape costs and the time staff spends on managing backups.

Online storage speeds cost savings

Online storage area network (SAN) consolidation can increase utilization, link storage islands and pool storage resources to streamline management and costs.

When new servers and applications pushed storage resources to the max, North American packaging manufacturer Applied Extrusion Technologies (AET) consolidated storage to an HP SAN and realized a near-immediate return on investment.

AET estimated support costs for the previous non-HP SAN at $250,000 for the year ahead. But the consolidated HP SAN solution only cost about $160,000 to buy and provides nearly 2.5 times the storage capacity.

Unified management frees resources

CitiStreet Challenge: High hardware costs and time-consuming management. Solution: HP StorageWorks EVA8000 arrays and HP Storage Essentials software. Result: Projected benefits of nearly $5 million over the next five years. » Read the full case study (PDF file) » HP Unified Management solutions » HP Storage Essentials » HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Arrays

Unifying storage and server management across the infrastructure can increase efficiency and lower costs without compromising control.

As a global benefits provider and one of the U.S.'s largest retirement plan record keepers, CitiStreet's storage needs are constantly expanding. At one time, this put tremendous strains on IT staff and budgets. It often took an entire team of engineers to reconfigure existing systems. Purchasing new storage only added to number of systems IT had to manage.

In response, CitiStreet consolidated storage onto an HP StorageWorks EVA, then unified management with HP Storage Essentials — an open, standards-based storage management suite designed for heterogeneous network storage.

Now, scaling and managing storage is much easier and faster, costs are lower, productivity is higher and sluggish performance is a thing of the past. As a result, CitiStreet projects it will gain a cumulative, five-year net benefit from the new solution.

Utility Ready storage aligns with business

National Medical Health Card Systems Challenge: Keeping up with up to 10 TB of data growth a year while keeping costs down. Solution: HP Pay-per-use Storage Utility Result: A projected cumulative five-year net benefit of more than $8 million. » Read the full case study (PDF file) » Utility Ready Storage

Expanding and contracting storage resources to stay in synch with business needs can be easier and cost-effective with HP Utility Ready Storage solutions. You pay only for the actual storage capacity you use, when you use it.

That's what New York-based pharmacy benefits manager National Medical Health Card Systems (NMHC) does to keep up with storage demands that grow by up to 10 terabytes a year.

With a Pay-per-use HP Storage Utility solution, HP quoted a monthly fee for storage services, then installed storage devices and metering technology on site.

Now, NMHC handles usage spikes without purchasing additional storage and only pays for the storage it uses. Together with reduced IT maintenance and troubleshooting costs, NMHC expects a cumulative five-year net benefit of more than $8 million.

Engineering and science students, faculty boost productivity with HP

Since 1994, each incoming freshman has received a notebook PC. For its latest class, the school wanted a highly durable notebook PC with faster processing speeds and improved graphics capabilities. After reviewing and testing several notebook PCs, the school chose the HP nw8440 Mobile Workstation.

Louis Turcotte, vice president of IAIT, Rose-Hulman, calls the HP mobile workstation "a robust and durable mobile computer with all the requirements in place."

"The HP nw8440 delivers desktop-equivalent performance, which is exactly what we want in terms of power and performance," he says. "Obviously our students need outstanding performance, but they also need a PC that can handle the rigors of being carried from building to building and handled constantly."

Equipped with Intel® Core™ 2 Duo and Intel Core Duo 64-bit processing technology, the HP nw8440 Mobile Workstation is a popular platform with professional engineers, and a natural fit for undergraduate engineering students, according to Turcotte.

"Engineering applications continuously evolve, and require increasing levels of hardware performance for support," he notes. "One of the concerns we have is the ability of our vendors to deliver really strong technology that's future-proof for at least several years. Our computing needs change every year, and we look to vendors that can adapt using the newest technology and deliver what we need. HP has done that."

The HP nw8440 delivers reliability on two fronts, says Turcotte. Equipped with the HP Mobile Data Protection System 3D, the nw8440 is engineered to reduce the amount of transmissible shock and vibration inside the PC, especially in and around the hard drive casing. Its dual-core processor, combined with a large 2-megabyte L2 cache and desktop-caliber graphics, helps provide the long-term performance that Rose-Hulman values.

"Many of our students work seven days a week on their computer, carrying it with them almost everywhere they go," Turcotte adds. "Plus many of them take their computer with them after graduation, loaded with years of files, data and engineering software. Reliability and a long lifespan are key factors when we put these PCs in the hands of new students."

Engineering courses made easier

David Mutchler, professor of computer science and software engineering, says Rose-Hulman faculty learned early on how powerful notebook PCs can transform the classroom environment.

In teaching calculus, he explains, an instructor needs to show students how to work with derivatives. The problem is that many students get bogged down in the mathematical mechanics of drawing a symbolic derivative curve. Using an HP PC, students can easily generate a graph of the function.

"Letting the PC handle that part of the problem means the rote aspect of calculus goes away and students can instead devote their energies to setting up and solving the problem," says Mutchler. "When we saw this effect, we were dedicated to making PCs a vital component in the classroom. We find that they truly improve the learning environment."

Tablet PCs help students learn

HP Compaq tc4400 Tablet PC, screen rotating » View enlarged image » Learn more or Buy » View the 3D demo of the tc4400 Tablet PC

Rose-Hulman has also begun evaluating HP Compaq Tablet PCs in the classroom. Over the past few years, the faculty has experimented with dozens of HP Compaq Tablet PCs acquired through HP Technology in Teaching Grants. Using these Tablet PCs, Rose-Hulman students learn more efficiently, thanks to faster note taking.

"In a traditional engineering classroom, students write furiously to keep up as the professor covers whiteboards with equations and working problems," says Julia Williams, an English professor and executive director of the school's Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment. "There's always the possibility that something can be lost in translation, or the student becomes focused more on transcribing than what the professor is saying.

That's completely changed thanks to Tablet PCs. Professors can conduct the entire class using a Tablet PC and an overhead projector. Students focus on a single screen, make notes on their own Tablet PC screen using the stylus and save their updates to an external flash drive. Everything is much more manageable."

It's an advantage that junior mechanical engineering student Chris Quick appreciates.

"It can be hectic in the classroom," Quick notes. "The HP Tablet PC is easy to work with and can multitask at the level we need. There are a lot of different functions that we work with. We often pull data or information from one application to another when we're working on a complex problem. The Tablet PC handles it with no problems. It makes our lives much easier and relieves some of the pressure to get information written down and put into play."

"The Tablet PCs not only perform well, they are very well designed and thought out," Williams adds.

Administrators and students cite several reasons, such as the Tablet PC's 12.1-inch, 160-degree wide-viewing angle display and specially treated glass that provide superior viewing. Another is the comfortable writing surface. The Tablet PC's in-mold lamination also helps protect the computer from bumps, jolts and the hazards of frequent use and handling.

DyKnow Vision improves learning

Collaboration between students and faculty is a hallmark of a Rose-Hulman education. To enhance this collaboration, the university uses the HP Tablet PC to run DyKnow Vision™ software, which Williams calls an "irreplaceable tool for collaborative learning."

Using the software's content replay feature, students play back their notes to reexamine stroke-for-stroke how charts were built or how concepts were introduced and explained. "It also helps you recapture new concepts much more quickly because you can watch, pause and replay the parts that were especially complex," Quick says.

"DyKnow Vision is demanding software," explains Williams. "It can push the hardware to the limit, but the HP Tablet PCs are capable of running the software efficiently and without any problems or delays."

That's one reason that Rose-Hulman plans to expand its use of the HP Tablet PCs beyond just a few classrooms, Williams notes. "We look at the HP Compaq Tablet PC as a very valuable learning tool, and our students have responded very well to using them."

Objective: Rose-Hulman needed powerful computer technology to meet the needs of faculty, current students and incoming freshmen. Approach: The school outfitted several classrooms with HP Compaq Tablet PCs and acquired HP Mobile Workstations for incoming freshmen. Business benefits: • " Increased productivity for faculty and students IT benefits: • " Durability and reliability help extend product life

HP Extends Lead in Blade Server Market, Growing Factory Revenue by 72 Percent in Second Quarter

HP extended its lead in the worldwide blade server market in both total blade server units shipped and factory revenue, according to second calendar quarter 2007 server market figures released today by industry analyst firm IDC.(¹)

HP significantly increased its lead as the No. 1 blade server vendor in the period with 47.2 percent total factory revenue share, a year-over-year factory revenue growth rate of 71.9 percent.

As businesses require more powerful and scalable computing solutions for traditional applications and new workloads such as Web 2.0, high-performance computing and gaming, HP saw increased demand for its HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture and ProLiant family of servers in the second quarter of 2007. HP maintained its commanding lead as the No. 1 x86 server vendor, with 34.8 percent unit market share, growing at 18.2 percent year over year in a market that grew unit shipments 7.8 percent.

As the worldwide server market accelerated overall, HP held its No. 1 position in unit shipments for the 21st straight quarter, increasing its server units by 17.4 percent year over year in the second quarter and growing unit shipments the fastest of the top five vendors in the worldwide server market. With impressive growth across its ProLiant, Integrity and BladeSystem families, HP captured 33.7 percent total unit shipment share, shipping more than one out of every three servers in the world; it also grew server factory revenue faster than the market.

"HP's continued market leadership demonstrates we are successfully investing in areas critical for our customers’ success,” said Scott Stallard, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage and Servers, HP. “HP’s innovation across our server and BladeSystem portfolios is driving customer preference that competitors cannot match and makes us a key technology partner for today’s environments and those to come."

Highlights from IDC's worldwide report include:

• Leading the blade server market for the third consecutive quarter, HP grew its total blade factory revenue by 71.9 percent in the second quarter of 2007, powered by increasing customer demand for the HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture. During the quarter, HP captured 46.2 percent unit shipment share and 47.2 percent factory revenue share and gained 13.2 percentage points of unit shipment share and 9.7 percentage points in revenue year over year.
• Outpacing the x86 server market overall, HP increased its lead to 35.1 percent factory revenue share and 34.8 percent shipment share. Driven by customer demand for new workloads beyond the typical strongholds, HP saw increased success with its ProLiant family of servers, growing x86 factory revenue 17.5 percent year over year.
• Showing continued leadership across the high-performance computing market, HP tied for the No. 1 position with 32.7 percent market share. HP continued to hold the No. 1 position in the high-performance computing cluster market in the second quarter of 2007 with 29.5 percent revenue share, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of leadership.(²)
• In the highly competitive AMD® Opteron™ processor-based server market segment, HP maintained its No. 1 position in both revenue and factory units shipped. Leading the competition in Intel® and AMD x86-64-based servers, HP shipped more than 2.4 times and 22.3 times as many servers as IBM and Sun, respectively.
• Driven by continued success with the HP Integrity and HP Integrity NonStop family of servers, HP held the No. 1 position in the EPIC/Itanium® processor market segment in both factory revenue and units shipped, with 42.3 percent factory revenue growth year over year in the second quarter of 2007.
• Growing significantly faster than the market, HP grew Linux server unit shipments and factory revenue by 30.6 percent and 43.8 percent, respectively. HP remains the No. 1 Linux server vendor, gaining more than 6 percentage points of factory revenue share in the second quarter of 2007.
• In combined Windows®, Linux and UNIX server unit shipments and factory revenue, HP maintained its No. 1 position with 33.6 percent and 32.0 percent share, respectively. These three operating systems account for 97.8 percent of all servers shipped worldwide.

More information about HP servers is available at www.hp.com/go/servers.

HP Wins IT Services Leasing Contract from Maritz

HP today announced it has won a leasing contract from Maritz Inc. to provide as-needed access to a wide range of HP products, including PCs, printers and servers.

The contract with HP Financial Services, the leasing and financial services subsidiary of HP, is valued at up to $5 million annually.

St. Louis-based Maritz is an integrated performance improvement, incentive travel and market research services company. By terms of its leasing contract with HP Financial Services, Maritz can order – as the company needs them – HP desktop or notebook computers, HP ProLiant servers, enterprise storage services, printers and software as well as other equipment from OfficeMax Inc., an HP value-added reseller.

Maritz takes delivery of new IT gear in St. Louis, where technicians load the software and proprietary networking applications, before shipping it to the appropriate office.

HP Financial Services reconciles equipment orders monthly and consolidates them quarterly into schedules under the master lease agreement. As older equipment comes off lease, it is returned to HP Financial Services’ technology renewal center in Andover, Mass., for remarketing. The company manages 1 million units of pre-owned and leased equipment a year.

“The ability to add equipment and services as we need them, without the capital outlay of an outright purchase, offers us a tremendous advantage,” said Rich Donnell, vice president, IT planning and administration, Maritz. “Additionally, HP Financial Services makes it possible to refresh our technology regularly without having to worry about what to do with older gear. We just ship it back and they take care of it.”

Maritz is the leading sales and marketing services company of its kind, helping clients achieve their full potential through understanding, enabling and motivating their employees, channel partners and customers. With more than 3,600 employees worldwide, Maritz ranks No. 265 in the most recent Forbes magazine listing of the “500 Biggest Privately Held Companies.”

Based in Murray Hill, N.J., HP Financial Services maintains offices in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. The company helps customers manage to the lowest total cost of ownership – from planning and acquiring technology all the way to retiring and replacing it.

HP and the environment

For decades HP has worked to manage its environmental impact by adopting environmentally responsible practices in product development, operations and supply chain. The company strives to be a global leader in reducing its carbon footprint, limiting waste and recycling responsibly. HP’s efforts earned it recognition as one of Fortune Magazine’s ”Ten Green Giants” in April 2007. More information about the company’s work in relation to the environment is available at www.hp.com/environment.