Pakedge Device & Software announces the S8Pe-- an 8-port gigabit unmanaged PoE and PoE+ switch supporting up to x4 ports with PoE+ power or up to x8 ports with full gigabit PoE.

It delivers up to 31.5W per port to x4 ports, making it ideal for high-power wireless access points and touch panels, HD IP cameras, HDMI-over-IP transmitters, home automation PoE+ controllers and other devices demanding PoE+ operation and gigabit ethernet connectivity.

It comes with x8 auto-speed-sensing 10/100/1000 Mbps ports, with plug-and-play operation requiring no software configuration.

Infonetics Research describes the 2012 global ethernet switch market as "solid" as revenues reach $19.8 billion with 4.7% growth (or up by nearly $1bn over 2011) despite European weakness and lower public sector spending. 

During Q4 2012 the market grew by 5% Q-o-Q to $5.1bn. 

"Signs are pointing to a healthier road ahead as discounting returns to normal levels and buyers seek higher-value products like layer 3 switches and higher-speed ports," the analyst remarks. 

According to Infonetics all top 5 vendors (Cisco, HP, Juniper, Dell and Brocade) see revenue growth in 2012. Smaller vendors also manage to gain share, even if Cisco and HP combined own over 75% of the WW ethernet switch market. 

10G accounts for "almost all" revenue growth, with 2012 10G port shipments growing by 66% thanks to data centre upgrades, 10G server adoption, server virtualisation and core network buildouts. 

40G ethernet also shows rapid growth-- 2012 port volumes are up by 10x, if from a small base.  Read more...

Gartner describes EMEA as "the weak spot for global server sales" as Q4 2012 shipments drop by -10.4% Y-o-Y to 630000 units with revenues reaching $3.8 billion with a -7.4% Y-o-Y decline. 

All EMEA sub-regions see Y-o-Y revenue declines-- W. Europe by -7.9%, E. Europe -7.3% and MEA -3.7%. 

"Without the strong growth of the hyperscale segment that is benefiting the N. American markets, or the continued macroeconomic growth of emerging regions in Asia/Pacific, EMEA is more exposed to the global weakness of enterprise spending on server infrastructure,” Gartner comments. “Q4 2012 ended another poor year for the market with revenue levels falling to a level lower than those in Q4 2009.” Read more...

HP announces additions to the BladeSystem, Converged Storage and Networking solutions portfolio at its annual Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas. 

First revealed is the BladeSystem c700 Platinum enclosure-- with backplane driving 7Tb/sec of aggregate bandwidth (up from 5Tb/sec in the 2006 c7000 chassis). It is paired with the SX1018 ethernet switch to provide what HP claims is the lowest port-to-port latency of any blade switch. 

It supports either x8 full-height or x16 half-height blades in a 10U rack enclosure, with own location and thermal Read more...