Stories by: Kevin Cosgriff

Consolidation is having a dramatic impact on the storage market; hardware vendors are merging with each other as well as with application vendors, and integration specialists are following suit. The plummeting price of hardware is forcing vendors to offload manufacturing to third parties and get into the services game. Meanwhile, customers are doing a spring-clean through their IT departments to understand and maximise their assets and the result has server vendors concerned for their livelihood. Kevin Cosgriff reports.

Input devices surrounding the PC have been doing remarkably well in a stagnant time. While desktop and notebook manufacturers have been struggling to make their numbers over the last year, Logitech and Microsoft, the ruling champions of peripherals supply, have grown their markets by 60 per cent and 50 per cent respectively (value growth) between 2001 and 2002.

Contrary to expectations, UPS unit sales have grown over the last 12 months, spurred by the market's preoccupation with security, disaster recovery and server consolidation. Better yet, writes Kevin Cosgriff, those big data centre projects that were put on hold in 2001 are making a comeback.

Sales in flat panel displays (FPDs) accounted for 16 per cent of total monitor sales in June, a 2 per cent rise on May sales and a dramatic 10 per cent increase on FPD units sold in the same period last year.

Last month, Sydney-based reseller Coefficiency pulled Lexmark printers out of two large government accounts and replaced them with Hewlett-Packard machines. The exercise was a protest against Lexmark's anti-channel tactics and may serve as an example to those who doubt a reseller's ability to steer the buying decision.

Last month, Sydney-based reseller Coefficiency pulled Lexmark printers out of two large government accounts and replaced them with Hewlett-Packard machines. The exercise was a protest against Lexmark's anti-channel tactics and may serve as an example to those who doubt a reseller's ability to steer the buying decision.

As customers wake up to the fact that AV alone is not going to save them from blended threats, security vendors are dashing out to ensure their systems will support as many complementary products as possible - firewalls, AV, content management systems, PKI and encryption technologies.

Last week, I encountered my first unsolicited tale of an injured PC due to a power surge. It came from the most unlikely of sources -- my 56-year-old mother.

When grandmothers are buying UPS, it's a sure sign the technology's visibility is increasing. Kevin Cosgriff thinks UPS just may have made it to the mainstream starting line.

The Aussie attitude 'she'll be right mate' is fast becoming the enemy of disaster recovery. The best bet to boost uptake may be to go on a rampage, snipping major power feeds and clinching the sale while customers are still feeling the pain, suggests Kevin Cosgriff.