Gateway Fills Out Server Line

Gateway filled out its server line Tuesday with a new RAID 5 rack-mount server aimed at midsized businesses, continuing the company's retrenchment from a strictly consumer-oriented company into one that aims to offer solid enterprise products.

The 9415 is designed for data intensive applications such as a database or Web server and can scale to ERP and CRM applications. The new machine runs on 64-bit Intel Xeon(TM) processors with an 800MHz front-side bus and the availability of 1MB or 2MB L2 cache; it sports three hot-swap SCSI drive bays enabling RAID 5 functionality, combined with a slim-line optical drive and up to 900GB(1) of storage. The server is priced starting at $1,199. The company also rolled out a new storage product; the Gateway 840 Serial ATA SAN offers Fibre Channel connectivity and scales up to 4.8TB(1) in a 2U chassis beginning at $4,449.

The 9415 can run a range of server operating systems, including Microsoft's full lineup of server suites, and is certified for Novell's NetWare 6.5, Red Hat Linux Enterprise 3.0 and 3.0 EM64T, and SUSE Linux Enterprise 9.0 and 9.0 EM64T.

Tim Diefenthaler, Gateway's senior director of server product marketing, said the 9415 is designed to fit a variety of needs at companies with 100 or more seats and fills the last remaining gap in Gateway's server portfolio.

"This has ben a void in our lineup for the past couple of years," Diefenthaler said. "We saw the need for a machine in the low-end space that could compete against Unix solutions. Companies are becoming more interested in running Linux or Windows at the entry level, and this is a perfect way to do that."Gateway's focus on the enterprise continues its strategic shift after the company, under founding Chairman Ted Waitt, made a series of business missteps in the early 2000s, such as a line of consumer electronics and computer stores that undercut its bottom line and stock value. Gateway president and CEO Wayne Inouye, who came to the company in March 2004 in the wake of Gateway's merger with eMachines, has worked since then to pare Gateway's commitments and develop an enterprise business that would work in tandem with the company's continued desktop, consumer and electronics offerings.

"We're definitely more settled," said Diefenthaler. "When customers have seen our revised roadmap, we've gotten good response from them. We're committed to the server space; we think it plays to our strengths as a company."

Diefenthaler indicated that Gateway is also working to develop partnerships that allow it to streamline its strategy and time to market for enterprise products. The company is partnering with Hitachi for storage products and includes LANDesk's Client Manager for server management in addition to its own system management product. "We can minimize our investment and take advantage of good solutions that are already available from brands that our customers already know and trust," he said.