Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Jun. 5 -- Compaq Computer Corp. in July will begin selling a line of small server computers that specialize in specific tasks for use with the Internet and intranets.
The first TaskSmart server, which will start at about $10,000, will be used to cache Web pages. Caching is the process of storing frequently used Web pages in a way that makes them pop up more quickly in users' browsers.
"This helps take the heavy load off a company's main Web server," said John Young, director of appliance and communication servers for Compaq's Enterprise Computing Group.
The caching server will be the first of several kinds of servers, each designed to handle a specific task. For example, Young said, future models might specialize in handling security on a network, simple database tasks or e-mail.
Currently, full-scale server computers -- those used to dole out data and program information across a network -- are often put to specialized uses. But this requires the installation of special software and often complex hardware tweaks.
Young said Compaq's goal is to have each TaskSmart "server appliance" pre-configured for the specific task so that network administrators need only connect it to the network and begin loading data.
The idea of a server appliance is similar to that of information appliances -- devices aimed largely at the consumer market that only do one thing with information, but do it well.
The TaskSmart Web-caching server emphasizes memory, hard drive size and the ability to quickly move data over processor speed, Young said. It will come with a gigabyte of random access memory, six very large hard drives, up to five high-speed Ethernet network connections but only a 450-Megahertz Pentium II chip.
"That's not the state of the art in processors, but for this application, you don't gain a whole lot with a faster processor," Young said.
The operating system for the server will be a customized version of Novell's Netware that has been rewritten to work with Compaq's product.
"This is not your father's Netware," Young said.
Compaq's stock closed Friday at 23, up .
Andy Bochman, an analyst in Boston with International Data Corp., said Compaq is the first brand-name PC maker to introduce a server appliance.
"There are some start-up companies that are selling Web-caching computers, but Compaq is the first of the big guys," Bochman said.
He added that Compaq may run the risk of stealing sales from itself, as the TaskSmart servers may eat into sales of its lower-end, general-purpose servers.
"But they seem to understand that and are willing to take the risk," he said. "They said to us, `This is the way the market is moving, and while there may be a short-term cost, we are going where the future is.'"
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