SINGAPORE--Hewlett-Packard has announced a new service initiative that it claims provides flexibility to customers during the current economic climate.

The company unveiled Proactive Select on Tuesday, a new component in its strategy to help midsize and large businesses keep their systems and technology running. Under this initiative, customers purchase pre-defined levels of credits and customize the services they require from a menu of 85 mission-critical services including those tied to security, software and virtualization.

Manufacturer:OCZ
UK Price (as reviewed):£344.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$376.99 (ex. Tax)

With SSDs looking like they’re on the rise this year, it’s certainly starting to get a whole lot more interesting in the world of storage. While most of us will continue to stick with cheaper and more voluminous mechanical drives like Samsung’s excellent Spinpoint F1 1TB hard drive for the time being, those looking for the speed boost that an SSD can bring to the general use of your PC now have a lot more options.

Manufacturer:OCZ
UK Price (as reviewed):£344.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$376.99 (ex. Tax)

With SSDs looking like they’re on the rise this year, it’s certainly starting to get a whole lot more interesting in the world of storage. While most of us will continue to stick with cheaper and more voluminous mechanical drives like Samsung’s excellent Spinpoint F1 1TB hard drive for the time being, those looking for the speed boost that an SSD can bring to the general use of your PC now have a lot more options.

Boosted by government initiatives and green spending, China's IT market in 2009 will only be minimally affected by the global economic slowdown, according to a new report from Springboard Research.

IT spending in the country will reach US$51.2 billion in 2009, a year-on-year growth of 11 percent, the research firm said in a statement Friday. This is only 2 percent shy of Springboard's previous estimate of 13.1 percent growth, or US$52.1 billion.