IT News: Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO)’s Huge Boost, Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ)’s Expectations & International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)

Why is Cisco interested in North Carolina incentives? (BizJournals)
Is something big brewing between networking giant Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) and the state of North Carolina that may be a huge boost for the company’s RTP campus? Maybe. I have confirmed that CEO John Chambers, in town for the North Carolina CEO Forum, had a one on one meeting with Governor Pat McCrory. While neither Cisco nor the governor’s office will comment on whether incentives to expand in the state were on the docket (“We actually do not comment on private conversations that our executives have with government leaders,” Cisco spokesperson Christina O’Neill says), Chambers talked about whether North Carolina can help the company with incentives privately with some CEOs last week.

Hewlett Packard announces HP EliteBook Revolve 810 and HP ProBook 430 (ciOL)
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) Printing and Personal Systems Group, India today extended its commercial PC portfolio with the announcement of HP EliteBook Revolve 810 and HP ProBook 430. EliteBook is a touch-enabled notebook that pivots to let users share their work and folds to go mobile as a tablet, and is priced at Rs. 90,000/-. HP ProBook 430 is a business notebook suitable for everyday use and is priced at Rs. 39,000/-. As a sleek and lightweight notebook that also converts to a tablet, the HP EliteBook 810 is designed to revolve around a busy executive’s life, and comes with elegant touch computing, enterprise-grade security and military-grade durability.

IBM Boosts Power to Linux Servers for Big Data, Cloud (cIO-Today)
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) Relevant Products/Services is pushing hard on its Linux on Power initiative. The company just rolled out a new PowerLinux server Relevant Products/Services and new software Relevant Products/Services and middleware applications that aim to satisfy the growing enterprise Relevant Products/Services appetite for big data Relevant Products/Services, analytics Relevant Products/Services and next generation Java applications in an open cloud Relevant Products/Services environment. The new PowerLinux 7R4 server is built on the Power Systems platform running IBM’s Watson cognitive computing solution. Big Blue says the server offers that same performance for the new business-critical and data-intensive workloads increasingly deployed in Linux environments. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is also pushing out IBM Cognos Business Intelligence and EnterpriseDB database software, each optimized for Linux on Power.