Hertz consolidates rental sites
Hertz Europe has signed a five-year IT and networking outsourcing deal with BT and HP to consolidate 170 suppliers into a single contract.
The network covers Hertz headquarters and 1,100 rental sites across the continent. The vendors will manage more than 5,000 desktop devices, 3,000 printers and 148 servers, and provide a central eprocurement system.
Sun unwraps Galaxy
Sun Microsystems has launched its new AMD Opteron-based servers, codenamed Galaxy. The SunFire x2100, x4100 and x4200 are rack-mounted servers using one or two dual-core processors. Future developments will offer support for eight dual-core chips. The systems use Sun’s Solaris operating system but can also support Windows and Linux.
Microsoft rebrands CRM products
Microsoft is rebranding its accounting and customer relationship management (CRM) software for small businesses under the new Microsoft Dynamics title. The move covers Microsoft’s existing CRM, Great Plains, Axapta, Navision and Solomon applications. New releases will provide greater integration with Microsoft Office, ultimately merging into a common client and server technology base.
Team claims chip breakthrough
Researchers at Imperial College London, Durham University and the University of Sheffield have claimed a breakthrough in chip design by linking computing nodes with nano-wires in a structure similar to neurons and axons in the human brain. In research published in the journal Science, the universities claim the chip could increase memory card capacity from an average of 500MB to about 100GB.
eBay bids for Skype
Online auction site eBay is buying voice over IP provider Skype Technologies in a $2.6bn (£1.4bn) deal. eBay plans to integrate Skype with its auction web site to allow a faster sales process in categories that require ‘more involved’ communications, such as used cars. Internet telephony could also open up new markets in countries such as India, China and Russia.