Arch rivals Intel and AMD are being bullish about their new multi-core processors. AMD with its 12-core Opteron 6000 series and Intel, with its 6-core Xeon 7500 processor series, are looking to give a fillip to a server market, which is still reeling from the effects of the recession.

With analysts expecting tech spending to increase in 2010, some experts feel the launches of the Xeon and Opteron could not have come at a better time. So can these new processors live up to expectations?

Even service providers are looking at it in the same way – ‘More processors = more performance per server = less need to maintain a high number of physical servers = cost savings’ is how they view it.

Considering that virtualization and consolidation are definitely  top priorities on most CIOs’ lists for this year, Intel and AMD seem to have played their cards at the right time. However, a possible concern could be around applications which are licensed as per-core, as opposed to per-CPU licensing. An increase in the number of cores will lead to a substantial increase in licensing costs of these applications, in effect negating the benefits from the performance improvements of these processors.

Another thing to be kept in mind is that consolidation and higher output per saver could lead to an increase in power usage, which will further balances out any efficiency gained. To avoid this, Singh advises that business evaluate the specific power v/s workload metric for particular user scenarios in the real-world to ensure that an upgrade to these processors will actually suit their requirements.

So, now if you have decided to upgrade to servers running these new multi-core processors, the next question should be – which one to choose? Asking the same question to NetMagic, we were told that the company would make a decision on the basis of price v/s performance and there were no preferences since they servers running AMD as well as Intel processors and were happy with both.

Price! – this is where AMD has an edge over Intel. Even if we forget that AMD has managed to pack 12 cores into the Opteron, twice the number that the Xeon boasts of, the Opteron family of processors are much cheaper as compared to the Xeon. This will surely have an effect on buying decisions and maybe make AMD’s Opteron more attractive to users. However this strategy has not really helped AMD much in the past, it still lags behind Intel in market share despite coming out with cheaper and arguably better products, but maybe in the present conditions this could just turn out to be a vital factor.

Meanwhile, hardware and software vendors like Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, VMware, Cisco, Cray, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NEC, Oracle, etc. are expected to support  Intel’s XEON 7500-based platforms. AMD has not released the list of partners, though a day after the launch, it announced that Acer would be making enterprise servers using the Opteron 6000 series.

The stage has been set with enterprises going to define the demand for multi-core processors as their benefits make for an overwhelming buy. With a long, well recorded history of legal disputes between Intel and AMD, are we looking at a new chapter in the “Core Wars”?

Oracle has unveiled AutoVue 20.0, a solution for viewing, reviewing and collaborating on asset and engineering documents and information across the global enterprise. The latest major release supports customers in a variety of industries including Engineering and Construction, Utilities, Oil and Gas, and Manufacturing.

The 3D Walkthrough capabilities in AutoVue 20.0 support both capital projects and facilities and maintenance operations by allowing users to perform detailed reviews of facilities from within and explore buildings and structures in a more natural way. Additionally a new Web services based Integration SDK provides users with a complete, open and standards-based set of integration solutions that supports integrations in any deployment environment including Java, .Net and C++.

The new file comparison capabilities enable users working with 2D CAD or EDA files to more efficiently review revisions to design and asset documents in compare mode, simplifying the revision process. AutoVue now empowers new business processes for Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management 7.0 and Oracle’s Primavera Contract Management 13.0, allowing customers to access AutoVue capabilities within their Primavera dashboard.

Hexaware is enhancing its legacy modernization services using the Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS and Batch 11g and Oracle Tuxedo Application Rehosting Workbench 11g. Legacy Modernization enables businesses to innovate, while controlling costs and Oracle Tuxedo 11g, an application server for mission critical C/C++ and COBOL applications, enables businesses to reduce development and deployment costs.

As part of this effort, Oracle will provide training to Hexaware’s technical team in addition to field and technical support. Hexaware will develop proof of concepts towards modernizing the applications in various technologies and thus create a distinct service offering for migration to Oracle Tuxedo. Both companies will engage in joint go-to-market activities to take this combined offering to customers.

Following an expensive acquisition (Sun Microsystems) and battling both IBM and SAP in the markets, Oracle still managed to post an impressive profit of $1.19 billion, or 23 cents per share, for the quarter ended February 28.

SAP’s most recent quarter was the best quarter of their year, only down 15%, while Oracle’s application sales were up 21%. But SAP is well ahead of them in the number of CEOs for this year, announcing their third and fourth, while they had only one.

Not entirely surprising, Oracle’s quarterly profit did slip by 11 percent as a result of its digestion of the $7.4 billion deal to bring Sun into its ranks. But according to Oracle’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff Epstein, the acquisition also added $458 million in revenue to the company’s bottom line.

They claim that the Sun integration is going even better than they expected.

Novarica, an analyst organization that provides insight on markets, operations and technology to financial services and insurance executives, profiled Oracle Insurance Claims Solution in a recent Novarica Vendor Solution Review, calling out the solution’s robust functionality, analytics capabilities, flexible interface and configurability as key strengths.

The report highlights the solution’s extensive feature set, citing that not only is Oracle Insurance Claims Solution bursting with robust end-to-end core functionality that demonstrates a thorough knowledge of claims, it delivers some unique features that stand out from the crowd. The rich self-service customer and agent portals, embedded BI (business intelligence) and analytical tools, wizard guides, and Web 2.0 features mark it as a uniquely broad solution.

Expanding its On Demand offerings to formalize solutions based on a leading suite of procurement applications, Oracle has unveiled Oracle Procurement On Demand. This is an adaptive offering that allows customers to utilize the latest version of Oracle’s procurement applications without requiring back-end ERP upgrades.

Oracle Procurement On Demand gives customers the freedom to deploy hybrid models that combine hosted applications with traditional on-premise software deployment based upon the unique requirements of each enterprise. A common applications architecture and standards-based integration framework between Oracle s Procurement On Demand and Oracle s ERP software deployed on-premise enables seamless integration of end-to-end procurement processes.

A former Sun Microsystems’ executive has re-assured worried OpenSolaris users the open-source operating system has a future under new owner Oracle.

Dan Roberts, Oracle director of product management, has said the database giant will continue to invest in OpenSolaris and will deliver the operating system’s next incarnation: OpenSolaris 2010.03.

Roberts repeated the official party line coming from Oracle when it’s asked about plans for the Sun hardware and software products that Oracle has decided to keep.

But a former director of Solaris, OpenSolaris, and database marketing said certain features would be kept out of the community pool.The comments on OpenSolaris follow growing concern among members of the OpenSolaris community that their product had gone almost unmentioned during Oracle’s recent Sun-strategy outing, and that – despite reaching out to Oracle – they’d had heard nothing back.

OpenSolaris project manager Peter Tribble complained they’d been completely ignored, with their questions over the project’s future going unanswered. OpenSolaris developer and evangelist Ben Rockwood also wrote an open letter pleading for information.

In the beginning Aircel had deployed Oracle Communications service fulfillment software, Oracle’s Siebel CRM, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Database. The successful implementation of the solution was done by Wipro Infotech along with Oracle Communications Consulting.
And now, Aircel Limited has teamed with Oracle to deploy Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper and Oracle Fusion Middleware to provide a highly scalable and personalized content delivery platform for new revenue generation.

This deployment will enable Aircel to offer :

->a new personalized multi-channel content portal where customers can access a large catalog of messaging, images, music, videos, games, news and regional services;

->it will allow the mobile operator to support flexible billing and delivery models that allow customers to manage   -real-time content,searches and subscription offerings via short message service (SMS) requests, interactive voice response (IVR) and the multi-channel portal.

->to monetize and generate incremental revenue from its network by managing and delivering message-based campaigns to its subscribers

It will also be offering users personalized content based on their home’s location or circle, their demographic profile, their handset type, or by an analysis of their usage history.