Hewlett-Packard, like any Tier 1 IT supplier, listens to what its customers and potential customers say. Back in July 2008, the company introduced its first portable data center product, the 40-foot, 22-rack, railcar-sized POD [Performance-Optimized Datacenter], because that size was the one most potential customers were interested in at the time. At a cost of $1.2 million apiece, only the largest enterprises could afford one. On Feb. 2, 2010, HP introduced a half-sized alternative to the big one a 20-foot POD that might fit budgets better with a price tag of $600,000. The company claims that there’s a lot of interest in this smaller-sized portable IT system that can operate anywhere on Earth there is power or some kind of coolant, as needed. This eWEEK slide show reveals some of the details of what’s in the box.
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