HAWAII

Punahou plans to replace servers

Punahou School has undertaken an energy reduction effort intended to cut its data-center power consumption in half by 2016. The school has replaced its legacy servers with low-power servers from IBM, running VMWare virtualization software.

The school recently started an initiative to reduce overall campus energy consumption 25 percent by 2010 and 50 percent by 2016.

The IBM servers will enable Punahou to consolidate all of its physical servers onto three x3850 M2s while maintaining availability and data protection.

Troubled firms index deteriorates

Honolulu-based Kamakura Corp. said yesterday that its index of troubled public companies deteriorated in October at the sharpest rate since it began in Jan. 1990.

The index jumped by a record 5.6 percent from 16.4 percent of the public companies included to 22 percent in October. It is the highest level since Jan. 2003, and it comes close to the 28 percent high in Sept. 2001.

The index, which covers 30 countries, has now shown declines in credit quality in 14 of the last 15 months.

Aetna and Costco offer drug plan

Hawaii will be one of 17 states to have a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug plan available through a partnership between Aetna, a health care benefits company, and Costco Wholesale Corp., the companies said yesterday.

Medicare beneficiaries now have the ability to purchase the new Aetna Medicare Rx-Costco Plus Plan. Plan premiums range from $50-$70 a month, depending upon the region. There is no deductible. Customers who sign up and have their prescriptions filled at Costco will have a maximum co-pay of $5 for generic prescription drugs ($10 if filled at other network pharmacies), and in some cases will have no co-pay for generics.

More information is available on the Costco Web site, www.costco.com, by searching AetnaPartD.

Hawaii Circuit City to remain open

As the lights go out at about 20 percent of Circuit City's stores, the company is hoping that by closing hundreds of stores and cutting thousands of jobs it can survive consumers who are reluctant to spend and vendors less eager to give it credit.

Circuit City Stores Inc. is closing 155 of its more than 700 U.S. stores by Dec. 31. The stores are spread throughout 28 states, but its one isle store on Oahu will stay open, the company said yesterday. It is laying off about 17 percent of its domestic work force, which could affect up to 7,300 people.

Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City also said it will further cut back on new store openings and plans to work with landlords to renegotiate leases, lower rent or terminate agreements while it deals with tightening credit from its vendors.

BRIEFCASE

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Honolulu-based real estate services firm Chaney Brooks & Co. in partnership with the Fifield Companies has opened a sales and marketing office in Tokyo at the Imperial Hotel Office Tower. The sales office will market and promote the Allure Waikiki and Allure Las Vegas condominium projects to Asian investors.

BANKRUPTCIES TOP 100,000: More Americans threw in the towel in October as monthly bankruptcy filings topped 100,000 for the first time since bankruptcy laws were tightened three years ago, according to data provided by Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, a service of Jupiter eSources LLC in Oklahoma City.