HP to supply US Air force with workstations

The United States Air Force (USAF) plans to buy new workstations and personal computers from Hewlett-Packard (HP), reports the San Francisco Business Times.

Palo Alto-based HP will sell the computers as part of an existing Air Force procurement programme called Client, Computer and Servers (CCS) Quantum Enterprise Buy (QEB).

According to ComputerWorld, the Air Force last year approved a five-year purchase agreement with HP that could be worth up to $800 million. The agreement, revealed on Monday but signed 1 July, allows the Air Force to purchase specific products under purchase agreement, including its latest workstations.

HP has been a long-time vendor to the Air Force, and says it has bought over 900 000 units of its various products in the last five years.

HP also revealed earlier this month that it was exploring “a full or partial separation” of its Personal Systems Group, either through a spin-off or “other transaction.” HP recently killed off its TouchPad tablet after poor sales.

The QEB will include the HP Z800 Workstation and HP Z400 Workstation, reports IEWY News. The HP Z800 Workstation offers Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors, providing up to 12 processing cores, up to 192 gigabytes of ECC memory, 10 terabytes of high-speed storage and up to dual NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 graphics.