UNWIRED

I was recently invited to attend HP TSG's EMEA event, where the technology major unveiled a range of new products, many of which have been pre-packaged with successful technology from the company's stable.

While the products themselves   (there is a more detailed report in this issue on the event) can be viewed more as a being a part of a renewed and bolstered range of storage solutions from HP, the event clearly indicated that there is new economics at play in the technology industry - volume economics.

So what does this mean? From integrating virtualisation solutions, to management tools and all in one storage, servers and networking into a single box, the industry is going a full circle to get back to the basics and offer customers quick start approaches and integrated offerings.

The term volume economics certainly defines this trend well as the industry begins to see tech solutions and products reach out to address a larger segment of the market, pack in more industry standard components into one box and reach the customer at better price points all in one go.

HP's BladeCentre Matrix for example, touted as a ready to use "infrastructure in a box" is positioned to be a plug and play solution for companies that want all in one.

It's not just HP that is talking about it. EMC's head honcho Joe Tucci checked in on the Middle East to launch its V-Max Architecture and emphasised that it is working to integrate as much of its acquired technologies including VMware and RSA to offer customers an integrated solution by default rather than as an option.

EMC's answer to the market is to place its bets firmly the promise of virtualisation and supporting storage architecture and what Tucci wants to see his company do is to take customers away from their dilemma of having to choose between scale-up or scale-out and offer them solutions that will help them do both.

It is also evident that virtualisation as a technology is driving much of this change and in the bargain working as a glue to bring products back to work together.

The surprise take over of Sun Microsystems by Oracle also adds an interesting twist to the tale. What is Oracle's plan for driving volume economics? A pre-configured appliance box with Oracle databases, pre-loaded applications and management tools to help jumpstart applications? Hold that thought.

Here's what Larry Ellison said recently about the merger. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system -- applications to disk -- where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves."

That also means that Oracle will be able to provide all the pieces customers need. One segment of the analyst industry also believes that Oracle is planning to offer an easy-to-manage midrange system that includes a database and applications.

But what if it really means that Oracle wants to build an appliance? Not a database or storage appliance, but a true application appliance, built from Sparc, Solaris, Oracle and application software, fully integrated, tuned and ready to use.

No assembly required and as little customisation as possible. Self-upgrading, self-managing, stick-it-in-a-closet simple - ERP/CRM-in-a-box! Now that's something that could be truly game changing for the industry and a proof point that a company can grow its hardware business with the margins of a software business. Interesting times indeed.