Hewlett-Packard unveiled a new Unix server on Tuesday, a crucial element in its grand plan to take on IBM. The HP rp8400 will become the company's principal offering in the midrange Unix/RISC server market and replace the rp7400, or N-Class, midsize server over time. Midrange, though, is almost a misnomer given the machine's muscle. Although less costly than HP's massive "Superdome" server, the new machine will be capable of running 16 processors at once. Prices start at $124,000 (about £87,000), depending on the configuration. The new server will primarily be used to run inventory management systems, complex databases or e-commerce applications and will compete against similar products from Sun Microsystems and IBM. The new model is part of HP's ongoing effort to make itself synonymous with servers. Since becoming the company's chief executive two years ago, Carly Fiorina has tried to transform HP from being a technological everyman--with products in hundreds of markets--into an outfit primarily dedicated to providing hardware, software and services for the large computer problems of the corporate world. The company's bid to acquire Compaq Computer, in fact, has largely been explained by Fiorina and other insiders in terms of how the merger will give HP the technological heft and engineering talent to pursue big, multiyear contracts for business systems. The server market, though, has been a difficult one for HP lately because of the stagnant economy. In the second quarter of 2001, HP saw its total server revenue decline by 18.9 percent from the same period a year ago to $1.6bn, according to researcher IDC. That was worse than the 16.2 percent decline in revenue seen in the industry as a whole. IBM saw total server revenues grow by 5.3 percent. In terms of Unix servers, HP saw shipments grow by 0.4 percent in units but decline by 14.4 percent in terms of revenue. Still, the Unix server industry as a whole declined by 15.9 percent. The rp8400 comes with up to 16 PA-8700 processors and runs the HP-UX 11i version of the Unix operating system. In the future, HP will also come out with circuit boards that will allow owners to adopt future PA-RISC or Intel Itanium processors. "With the HP Server rp8400, HP is redefining the industry's midrange UNIX landscape," Duane Zitzner, president of HP Computing Systems, said in a statement. Last March, HP upgraded the N-Class servers by incorporating the PA-8700 processor in the line for the first time. See ZDNet UK's Enterprise Channel for full coverage. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Click on the TalkBack button and go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom. And read other letters.