ShadowRAM: Magnetic north on the Gold Coast

COMMENTARY: Rumours, truth and innuendo


Magnetic north on the Gold Coast

Storage giant Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) held its annual reseller shindig dubbed the ‘TrueNorth Leadership Forum’ at the swanky Sheraton Mirage on the Gold Coast from 9 to 11 November.

Apart from the usual channel updates, some lucky HDS partners scooped up awards. Integrator Global Storage won the top gong, TrueNorth Partner of the Year, while New Zealand-based Hosting and Datacentre Services won Business Solution of the Year.

Other winners included fast growing reseller ComputerCORP, which won Technology Solution of the Year; Storage Champions of the Year awards went to Volante’s Phillip Robustellini and Surebridge’s Ian Irving.


Intel not yet core to Apple

Apple may be ready to shift to Intel’s chips, but it apparently is still hedging its bets with other Intel technology.

Chris Lattner, an Apple developer, recently sent a note to other developers revealing he is still working on a new version of the Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) instruction set. LLVM uses ‘RISC-like instructions’, according to the LLVM.org website. Wes Felter, a researcher in IBM’s Power- Aware Systems group, found this odd.

"One might expect that Apple would just use Intel’s excellent compilers from now on, but apparently they’re making a big investment in the LLVM compiler infrastructure," Felter wrote on his blog, "Hack the Planet."


Acronym of the month

This month’s best acronym so far is SNARF. That’s Microsoft’s ‘Social Network And Relationship Finder’, an Outlook add-on targeting those who ‘have trouble keeping up with their email’. Well, that’s a healthy demographic.