Whether this was due to internal coordination problems or fear of competing against HP, Sun, and Dell is open for speculation, but we made several attempts to get IBM back in the game. In fact, when first confronted with the news that they weren't going to make it to the lab, I broke the rules and extended IBM's deadline by 10 business days.

Those 10 days passed with nary a whisper from Big Blue. They followed up a week or so later claiming that they could deliver hardware to the lab in another two weeks, but given their track record, I wasn't going to hold my breath. The test had been over for two weeks, anyway. Too little, too late.

HP BladeSystem c-Class

First up on the block was HP's brand-new BladeSystem c-Class. The c-Class substitutes 2.5-inch SAS drives for the 3.5-inch SCSI drives found in the previous crop of HP blades, and it abstracts much of the blade hardware into a modular backplane that boasts 5Tb throughput. These two factors mean HP's blades are half the size of their predecessors, yet offer more connectivity options and processing power.

The chassis is a complete redesign, boasting a nicely trimmed up-front LCD panel display that can be used to configure a surprising number of chassis operating parameters. The panel has a Web UI counterpart that matches the display exactly, easing 'remote hands'-type administration. Up to 16 blades can fit into a single 10U c-Class chassis with a maximum power draw of 3.6kW. The N+N power supply configuration is also nicely handled, with six hot-swap power units laying low at the bottom of the chassis.