At its Singapore launch today, HP claimed the Extreme Scale-Out (ExSO) portfolio included "the most significant design innovation since the blade form factor".

The portfolio targets businesses involved in Web 2.0, cloud computing and high performance technical computing. It was most suited to companies with 'scale out' business models requiring high performance technical computing power, such as those in the search engine space (Google, Yahoo), on-line gaming and animation production houses, not to mention financial services and government.

Stephen Bovis, HP's new vice president of industry standard servers, EP Asia Pacific and Japan, said the ExSO portfolio enabled enterprises typically with up to 100,000 servers in their data centres, to achieve an economy of scale "never before possible".

HP claims its research shows that, internationally, companies with 'scale out' business models (with an average 100,000 sq ft, or 9,290 sq m, data centre) could save more than US$158 million in reduced capital expenditure and $31.7 million in energy costs with the new ExSO portfolio.