Kingston launched a fleet of new system-specific SO-DIMM memory packages. Each of these packages contain memory that's tested for 100% compatibility and rated performance on the notebook makes they're specific to. These include HP, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Sony, and Toshiba. The new packages make it easy for ground-store buyers to pick the right memory for their notebooks off the rack, with minimal help from the storekeepers. Newer batches of Kingston DDR3 SO-DIMM memory for notebooks will implement the new packaging.

HP today announced that the HP Z1 Workstation is now available worldwide for a starting price of $1,899 through global resellers and retailers, including CDW, MelroseMAC and PC Mall. The world's first all-in-one workstation with a 27-inch diagonal display was unveiled in Las Vegas on Feb. 14 at the HP Global Partnership Conference.

Built for computer-aided design, digital media and entertainment professionals, the HP Z1 provides blazingly fast rendering and performance. It offers a full range of workstation-class graphics cards and processors and is thoroughly tested and certified to work with today's leading industry applications.

The worldwide PC market saw a slight increase in volume during the first quarter of 2012 (1Q12) compared to the same quarter in 2011, with shipments rising 2.3%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. The results are slightly above IDC's February projections of a 0.9% year-on-year decline due to hard disk drive (HDD) supply constraints in addition to weak economic conditions, competition from other devices, and uncertainty about Windows 8.

HDD supply remained a key constraint through most of the first quarter, although PC makers generally had better access to drives than customers in the retail and distribution channels. As a result, large PC vendors were able to maintain shipments by managing inventory or absorbing price increases, while the impact to shipments from smaller PC makers was in line with expectations.

Recognizing standout marketing campaigns within the Intel Inside and Intel Brand Advantage programs, Intel Corporation feted a handful of companies with the first Intel Marketing Innovation Awards.

Fujitsu took the Grand Prix for its LIFEBOOK4Life campaign, being the best all-around entry among the various award categories. Fujitsu's campaign sought to increase brand relevance and drive sales for LIFEBOOK notebooks based on the second-generation Intel Core vPro processor family. The campaign targeted IT decision-makers in SMB, enterprise and the channel in 40 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. The campaign resulted in a 65 percent sales increase by integrating innovative social media activities via LinkedIn, Facebook, word-of-mouth, augmented reality and viral videos with standard advertising.

Wintel (slang for Windows+Intel architecture) tablets, which launch along with Microsoft's latest Windows 8 operating system, which grab a greater market-share than WoA (Windows on ARM) tablets by the end of 2012, DigiTimes research predicts. This, despite the fact that the x86 and ARM versions of the operating system will be released simultaneously. PC majors such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, ASUStek and Toshiba, have all pledged 1-3 models of Wintel tablets by the end of 2012. Although still an emerging market-segment, tablets will see a clash between x86 and ARM architectures, as they are wooing for the same exact class of devices for the first time in computing history. Intel has made a lot of progress in miniaturizing the Atom processor, while led by the likes of Qualcomm and NVIDIA, ARM processors are getting stronger.

HP today announced that the HP board of directors has authorized a 10 percent increase in the amount of its regular quarterly dividend, to $0.132 per share.

The increase in the amount of the dividend will be effective when the HP board of directors declares HP's next dividend, which is expected to occur in May. The company's previously announced dividend payable on April 4, 2012, for stockholders of record on March 14, 2012, will not be increased and will remain at $0.12 per share. HP has approximately 2 billion shares of common stock outstanding.

HP today announced an organizational realignment to improve performance and drive profitable growth across the entire HP portfolio.

As part of this realignment, HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and its Personal Systems Group (PSG) are joining forces to create the Printing and Personal Systems Group. The combined entity will be led by Todd Bradley, who has served as the executive vice president of PSG since 2005.

Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of IPG, is retiring after a highly accomplished 31-year career at HP. Under Joshi's leadership, IPG has grown revenue from $19 billion to $26 billion, and doubled its operating profit to approximately $4 billion.

Worldwide factory revenue for the high performance computing (HPC) technical server market increased by 8.4% in full-year 2011 to reach a record $10.3 billion, up from $9.5 billion in 2010, according to the newly released International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide High-Performance Technical Server QView. The 2011 results exceeded IDC's forecast of 7.2% year-over-year revenue growth.

Unit shipments in 2011 declined 6.9% year over year as average selling prices grew, indicating a continued shift to large system sales. IBM and HP ended the year in a statistical tie for leadership with 32.6% and 32.1% of overall factory revenue market share, respectively. (Note: IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide server market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.)

Even as Ivy Bridge-powered notebooks are weeks, or even months away, biggies like HP have their designs in order. HP even posted promotional videos of some of its notebooks on YouTube, including in three new Pavilion lines: dv4, dv6, and dv7. The dv4-5000 is a 14-incher with 1366x768 pixels resolution, Core i7-3610QM (2.30 GHz) processor, up to 8 GB memory, GeForce GT 630M 2 GB DDR3 graphics, and up to 1 TB of HDD space.

The dv6-7000 packs a 15.6-inch screen with up to 1366x768 pixels resolution, the same i7-3610QM chip, GeForce GT 630M or GT 650M graphics, up to 2 TB of HDD space, and a little more connectivity than the dv4-5000. Lastly, there's the dv7-7000, with 17.3-inch screen with up to 1920x1080 pixels resolution, GeForce GT 650M graphics, up to 2 TB HDD space, and even more connectivity options. Apart from the three, HP also unveiled Pavilion g4-2000, g6-2000, g7-2000; which are 14-inchers, with 1366x768 pixels resolution, AMD "Trinity" A6 APU or Intel Core processors, AMD Radeon HD 7670M or AMD Radeon HD 7520G + 7670M Dual GPU, and mainstream connectivity.Detailed specifications and videos follow.

What happens when you send a PC cooling expert such as Zalman into the field of PSUs? You get PSUs with genuine innovation in cooling, which translates to quieter PSUs. Such is the case of the ZM750-HP Plus, an upper-mid range 750W PSU from Zalman. The PSU replaces aluminum cooling plates with copper heat pipes that draw heat away from hot parts (such as FETs), and onto aluminum fin stacks, which are ventilated by a large 140 mm fan. Since a lot of heat is dissipated passively by these large heatsinks, the fan has very little work to do, and so it spins at low speeds, resulting in very quiet operation.

The ZM750-HP Plus features modular cabling, enough to wire out a gaming PC with two graphics cards. The PSU is 80 Plus Silver-rated. It uses a quad 12V rail design, among which two deliver 28A each (for graphics cards), one delivers 25A (motherboard and SATA), one delivers 20A (CPU, dedicated to the EPS connector). It uses a dual forward-switching design, with active PFC. A secondary protection IC governs various safety features such as OCP, OVP, SCP, UVP, and OTP. The ZM750-HP Plus from Zalman, is expected to be priced at US $189,50.

The workstation market proceeded ahead in the fourth quarter of 2011, completing a long climb back from the 2009 depths of the global economic recession that had slashed its shipments by over 40 percent. But that fourth quarter advance was more a case of "steady as she goes" than "full speed ahead", reports Jon Peddie Research senior analyst Alex Herrera.

The leading market research firm has completed its data collection and analysis of results from the quarter, and finds Q4 followed the same basic storyline Herrera had been laying out over the previous few quarters. The market has not only fully recovered from the recession, it's showing continued stability and some undeniable signs of strength. But at the same time, there remain scattered pockets of concern, as the market has yet to resume the pace of growth it sustained back in the years 2005 through 2008.

NVIDIA today announced that its NVIDIA Tesla GPUs will be included in HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) servers, delivering new levels of computational performance for scientific applications at world-class power efficiency.

HP ProLiant SL250 Gen8 CPU-GPU hybrid servers combine the world's most powerful parallel processors, NVIDIA Tesla M2090 GPUs, with new Intel Xeon E5-2600 series CPUs based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture.

HP today introduced new multicore updates and increased expandability on its powerful line of HP Z Workstations. The new workstations feature the latest eight-core Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family, offer up to 512 gigabytes (GB) of DDR3 memory, and support multithreaded workstation applications that professionals rely on.

The latest additions to the industry-leading line of HP Z Workstations also feature third-generation PCI Express technology, providing customers increased performance and seamless integration of new graphics cards.

According to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market decreased 7.2% year over year to $14.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11). This was the first quarterly decline in factory revenue in two years. Worldwide server shipments increased 2.0% to 2.2 million units in 4Q11 when compared with the year-ago period.

For the full year 2011, worldwide server revenue increased 5.8% to $52.3 billion when compared to 2010, while worldwide unit shipments increased 4.2% to 8.3 million units.

On a year-over-year basis, all three classes of servers experienced decreased factory revenue totals in the fourth quarter. Volume systems experienced a 2.0% year-over-year factory revenue decline to $8.8 billion, while midrange revenue decreased 4.6% to $1.8 billion when compared to 4Q10. Additionally, high-end system revenue declined 18.4% to $3.7 billion in the quarter. This is the first time all three server classes have experienced year-over-year declines in revenue since the third quarter of 2009.

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY") is considered a leading designer, manufacturer and a worldwide leader in DRAM Memory and Flash Memory products, has introduced the new HP v165w Flash drive of their HP authorized line. HP v165w offers durable and easy transfer of files. The HP v165w is encased in a blue shell and transparent design that gives a futuristic and edgy look to it.

The small and compact size makes it a convenient and portable storage device and enables user to plug and use it anytime and anywhere.

To help customers address the inefficiencies and lost costs of managing multiple support vendors, Dell ProSupport for Multivendor has been globally expanded beyond x86 to include support for storage, networking and UNIX products. This expansion also includes support for additional vendors for servers, desktops and laptops. By consolidating support under one service provider, customers can ensure consistent processes and reduce the resources required to manage complex services contracts from multiple vendors, ultimately simplifying IT management and reducing their IT costs.

"Our customers rely on the expertise, global network and 24x7 availability of Dell ProSupport for their Dell systems and can now experience those same benefits across their entire environment," said Doug Schmitt, vice president, Dell Services. "With the latest expansion of Dell ProSupport for Multivendor, customers around the world can rely on Dell for all of their support needs. From end-user systems to complex data centers and everything in between, customers will save time and money and receive the same award-winning support they've come to expect from Dell ProSupport."

HP today announced financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2012. For the quarter, net revenue of $30.0 billion was down 7% from the prior-year period, and down 8% when adjusted for the effects of currency.

GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.73, down 38% from the prior-year period. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.92, down 32% from the prior-year period. First quarter non-GAAP earnings information excludes after-tax costs of $364 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, related to amortization of purchased intangible assets, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.

HP today unveiled the world's first all-in-one workstation with a 27-inch diagonal display. Designed like no other, the display of the new HP Z1 Workstation snaps open so users can easily swap out parts and make upgrades without any tools required.

The HP Z1 combines a sleek industrial design with accelerated performance featuring Intel Xeon processors, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, support for more than 1 billion colors and HP's world-class reliability.

Built for computer-aided design, digital media and entertainment professionals, the HP Z1 provides blazingly fast rendering and performance. It offers a full range of workstation-class graphics cards and processors, and is thoroughly tested and certified to work with today's leading industry applications.

HP today announced the powerful new HP t610 Flexible Series Thin Client and HP t510 Thin Client with industry-leading performance and security, enabling businesses to protect their data more effectively while improving employees' user experience.

The HP t510 and HP t610 come standard with dual-core CPUs and offer graphics cores that offload computing from the server to the chipset, enabling users to easily stream multimedia and work with high-definition (HD) graphics. The HP t510 and HP t610 also enable the use of multiple monitors and remote connections.

Although the current generation of "Ultrabooks" don't really conform to a rigid specification apart from being really slim, unlike the next-generation Ivy Bridge-based ones which will have to conform to a specification laid down by Intel, the name "Ultrabooks" (short for ultra-portable/slim notebooks) has stuck. With Intel's newest processing platform just a couple of months away, notebooks manufacturers are reportedly lowering prices of current-generation Ultrabooks.

The move to lower prices of Ultrabooks is simply to clear inventories and pave the way for the next-generation. The prices will be cut significantly. Acer's Ultrabook S3 already saw its price drop to US $799 from $999; while HP's Ultrabooks will see prices cut by as much as 25 percent. Price of Lenovo's Ultrabook will go down by up to 21 percent. In short, every $999-ish Ultrabook will see its price go down to $749-799.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced today that Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), of Palo Alto, Calif., has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $425,000. The settlement agreement (PDF) has been provisionally accepted by the Commission (3-1).

The settlement resolves staff allegations that HP knowingly failed to report immediately to CPSC, as required by federal law, that certain lithium-ion battery packs contained a defect or created an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. The lithium-ion battery packs can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. The packs were shipped with new HP Notebook computers, sold as accessories or provided as spare parts for various HP models.

Number one PC maker HP has today introduced the Mini 1104, a new 10.1-inch netbook targeting mobile professionals and students. This machine is 0.89 inches thick and features a 1.6 GHz Atom N2600 dual-core processor, an LED-backlit (1024 x 600) display, 2 GB of RAM, Intel GMA 3600 graphics, a 320 GB (5400 RPM) hard drive, and a 93% full-sized (spill resistant) keyboard.

HP's netbook also packs 10/100 LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 (HSPA+ support is optional), a media card reader, a VGA webcam, a D-Sub output, three USB 2.0 ports, and a 3-cell (28 WHr) or 6-cell (55 WHr) battery.

The Mini 1104 starts at $399 and can be pre-loaded with Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium or Professional) or FreeDOS.

HP today announced that Bill Veghte has been appointed chief strategy officer. In addition to his new responsibilities, Veghte will continue in his current role as executive vice president of HP Software.

As chief strategy officer, Veghte will be responsible for keeping HP on the cutting edge of innovation. He will work with HP's senior business and technology leaders to help define the IT industry's future and make certain HP continues to lead the way. Veghte's new role reaffirms HP's commitment to providing customers with the latest platforms, products and services needed for success in a rapidly changing world.

Following the success of their v175w ice cream flash drives PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY") is considered a leading designer, manufacturer and a worldwide leader in DRAM Memory and Flash Memory products, introduced a new USB flash drive, the v270w. The innovative flash drive comes in an egg shaped design that gives a light-hearted and fun vibe whilst offering fast and convenient transfer of files on the go.

The HP v270w is covered in a distinctive multicolored rubber material offering water and shock resistance that protects and prevents any data loss from accidental drops or external collisions. The egg shaped cover is embossed in wavy design which provides better grip and easy disconnection. The bright use of white and sunshine yellow exudes a playful and radiant appearance.

Hit by hard drive shortages and slow economic conditions, the PC market has ended 2011 on a rather low note, with preliminary data from research firm IDC showing that PC sales in Q4 were of 92.7 million units, down 0.2% on-year. Despite the Q4 drop, the PC market still managed a decent result for the whole year, recording a 1.6% increase in shipments compared to 2010.

Back to the Q4 data though, we see HP maintaining its top position with 15.1 million shipped units and a market share of 16.31%. It's worth noting that, while it's still top dog, HP actually experienced a 15.93% drop in shipments compared to the same period of 2010. On second place, inching closer to HP is Lenovo, with a 14.04% share (the company managed a 36% growth over Q4 of 2010) while on third we find Dell securing 12.91% of the market.