IGT pursues server based gambling

In a move that could accelerate the development of the next wave of high-tech slot machines, International Game Technology is in talks to acquire a small, technology-rich competitor, Cyberview Technology, for $70 million, reports Las Vegas Sun.

IGT is pursuing server-based technology which gives casinos greater control over their slot machines. Cyberview already has developed that technology.

The talks come at a pivotal time for the slot machine industry, which is ploughing hundreds of millions of dollars into technology similar to that used by Cyberview in Britain. This technology, called "server-based" gaming, will revolutionise casino floors by allowing bosses to quickly change game titles, denominations, maximum bets and payback percentages at the touch of a button.

SAP is furthering its efforts to gain medium-sized business customers with a new appliance-like ERP server that runs on quad-core Xeon processors and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise, says InformationWeek.

The server, developed in partnership with Intel, is aimed at manufacturing as well as service companies and comes bundled with SAP's All-in-One ERP software and the SAP MaxDB database. SAP is demonstrating the system at the Cebit show in Germany this week.

The server is available in five Northern European countries and should reach 20 countries this year. SAP is planning availability in the United States in the second quarter, Peter Klaey, president of global SME at SAP said. Customers can configure systems and get price estimates based on configurations at SAP.com.

Blancco has released a new data destruction solution for high-end server and SAN environments that enables enterprises to rapidly and comprehensively delete large volumes of data, says idm.net.au.

Blancco says its new erasure client marks a significant upgrade from earlier versions and supports a much expanded range of hardware such as Serial ATA, SAS, SCSI and Fibre Channel disks.

It also supports remapped sectors and can deftly handle abnormal sector sizes such as 520, 524 and 528. This enables it to erase hundreds of hard drives simultaneously, and up to 10TB in under one hour.