No, they aren't claiming that. Clock speed is still extremely important, though, and nobody else except IBM has figured out how to hit these high gigahertz numbers, much less within power and cooling constraints. What's all the more impressive is that IBM does it at mainframe service qualities, i.e. this machine runs continuously at 5.5 GHz without shutting off cores, without "burst" mode, and without weird/exotic stuff like cryogenics that might keep a chip running long enough for a screenshot. It's just balls out performance on every thread -- and there's a definitely a market for that. Nobody else is left doing this computer engineering, bless them. Also check their cache sizes (obscenely huge), out-of-order execution, pipelining, crypto and decimal floating point in every core, extremely complex instructions like transactional execution.... This z CPU is a gorgeous piece of engineering in every way. And no, you can't run an entire large bank (for example) on your laptop.

GiffGaff runs on the O2 network. They offer 500 MB for only £5 (or 1 GB for £7.50). You need to open the account with a minimum of £10 of credit. Just buy a GiffGaff (preferable) or O2 £10 card at any mobile top-up counter -- at petrol stations, post offices, off licences (convenience stores), etc. SIMs are free when mailed to a domestic U.K. address, but make sure to order a MicroSIM for an iPad. Activate online (via wifi). Smartphone rates are great, too.

By what measure is HP the "world's largest computer vendor"?

• Market capitalization? No, that's Apple.
• Software? No, that's Microsoft.
• Business software ("middleware")? No, that's IBM and then Oracle.
• Internet? No, that's Google.
• Mobile? No, that's Samsung (in units) and Apple (in profits).
• Servers? Depends on which quarter/year you check, but generally that's been IBM, especially in the more profitable high-end.
• Networking? No, that's Cisco.
• IT services? No, that's IBM.
• Business applications? No, that's SAP and Oracle.
• PC distribution? Yes, although Lenovo is now nipping at their heels.

HP is rather tiny now, especially in market capitalization terms (under $40B). For perspective, even Facebook, which has been battered, has a higher market capitalization. HP really needs to choose its battles wisely.

No, they're very different. They have entirely different instruction sets as one example. As another, the z196 is clocked at 5.2 GHz and POWER7 at 4.25 GHz (in the 795 Turbo). The z196 is quad-core while POWER7 is octo-core. POWER7 has about 1.2 billion transistors and z196 about 1.4 million. POWER7 has a private per-core L1 instruction cache of 32 KB; z196, 64 KB. POWER7's private per-core L1 data cache is 32 KB; z196, 128 KB. POWER7's private L2 cache is 256 KB; z196, 1.5 MB. The L3 cache design is different, too. And those are just a few examples.

None of the IBM z/Architecture microprocessors (or their ESA/390 and prior predecessors) are listed yet. So Stanford is only missing the highest clock speed CPU ever created in the entire history of computing to date -- the IBM z196 microprocessor. Which seems like a rather serious and obvious omission. Also a bit insulting, since IBM has been announcing their new z/Architecture microprocessor breakthroughs exclusively first at Stanford's own "Hot Chips" conference for several years now. (Ooops.)

LTO-6 is not available yet. When available, each cartridge will hold up to 3.2 TB uncompressed. (I can make up practically any figure I want for compressed data capacity. It just depends on the type of data and the compression algorithm.) That's not bad, but IBM's TS1140 tape drive has been available since June, 2011. It supports tape cartridges that each hold up to 4.0 TB uncompressed. The Oracle StorageTek T10000C tape drive supports cartridges that each hold up to 5 TB uncompressed. It depends on what you're doing -- raw storage capacity per cartridge is certainly not the only relevant specification -- but there are interesting choices.

IBM hit 5.2 GHz in 2010. That's with all cores active and constant operating speed, too.

I have looked.

High-frequency (program) traders make big investments in computing that is located as close as possible to trading floors. They employ extremely expensive programmers to write highly proprietary code to run on these machines located on prime real estate, in speed of light terms. That's exclusively a rich man's (or firm's) game. I'm hard pressed to think of any way in which such trading helps allocate capital materially better to the real economy, which is the only useful purpose of finance. It's a grand waste of talent and resources that could be put to much better use elsewhere in the economy.

Somehow, prior to high-frequency trading, the world had plenty of liquidity, extremely narrow spreads, and not any more volatility than today (and probably less). I think the (real) world will do just fine without HFT.

Centralized computing works fabulously (and inexpensively) if you've got the right infrastructure. Mainframes work.

A lot of people get that wrong about IBM. For example, IBM's software business generates more profit than its services business. IBM is simply the most successful technology solutions company for business (and government) with the most extensive vertical integration of hardware, software, and services. If you think of IBM as primarily one of those businesses, you're entirely missing their business model. Their business model is not altogether unlike Apple's -- IBM and Apple have very similar philosophies in how to succeed -- but they don't compete.

No, a consistent user interface is not going to be enough. WebOS has a consistent user interface. Microsoft has a business model problem, and that's tough to fix. Application services are becoming more Web-based (cloud-based if you prefer), and Microsoft's Internet Explorer is no longer particularly popular. It's no problem running Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, mobile or tablet, to access the Web. (In many respects it's a better experience than IE on Windows.) Microsoft doesn't control much content distribution, doesn't control the dominant application ecosystems for mobile and tablets, and hasn't extended its Office franchise much less dominated in those dominant mobile and tablet ecosystems. (And those mobile and tablet ecosystems are doing just fine without Office, thanks.) On the back end, Linux dominates in the delivery of cloud-based services, not Microsoft. There are lots of business model problems here, and they only seem to be getting worse.

Apple's machine runs Apple's software. Something else doesn't. The value is in the software (and the content), customers recognize that, and so does Wall Street. It's really quite simple. The number that Wall Street assigns to the value of a company is far, far removed from the number of gigahertz in that company's products. Apple has found multiple winning formulas in its products, while Microsoft is struggling to deliver compelling products right now.

Apple controls the dominant application and content ecosystems for both mobile and tablet devices. Nokia (especially) and RIM never accomplished that. People don't buy iPhones and iPads only because of the hardware, excellent though it is. They buy those devices for the Apple and non-Apple software solutions and content. Regardless, the only application ecosystems that are even remotely competitive to Apple's in these two device categories are Android's, not Microsoft's.