IBM Offers Its Integrated Platform for Telecommunications — IP-T — with Fujitsu Siemens Computers SAFE4CS Software; New Solution Helps Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturers Cut Development Costs and Shorten Time to Market

Business Wire, June 7, 2005

CHICAGO & MUNICH, Germany -- Fujitsu Siemens Computers today announced the signing of a global agreement with IBM that allows the two companies to work together to provide cost-effective server and middleware solutions for telecommunications equipment manufacturers.

The agreement enables IBM to offer the Fujitsu Siemens Computers SAFE4CS carrier grade, high-availability software suite as a key component of the IBM Integrated Platform for Telecommunications (IP-T). The resulting solution gives IBM a complete, fully-integrated telecommunications infrastructure offering capable of helping the telecommunications equipment manufacturers deliver cost-effective, standards based products to their customers the service providers. The agreement allows Fujitsu Siemens Computers to extend the reach of a powerful middleware platform that is already installed in hundreds of customer telecommunication networks around the world.

"The combined solution offers equipment manufacturers a complete service platform," said Jens Peter Seick, VP of Enterprise Products Unix at Fujitsu Siemens Computers. "Our collaboration will allow telecom application developers to save development costs, build stable, reliable products quickly, and enable their customers to build profitable service businesses in telco, electronic or mobile commerce, and financial markets. We are delighted that IBM chose SAFE4CS(TM) which enables IBM to offer a fully-integrated and competitive carrier grade solution. With this solution telecom equipment manufacturers will be able to enhance their application development environments and redeploy their increasingly limited development budgets to add value to their application portfolio."

The IBM eServer Integrated Platform for Telecommunications features IBM eServer BladeCenter T systems, and is designed to help network equipment providers and solution providers reduce the time and costs associated with developing and deploying next generation network applications for critical workloads, such as mobile network infrastructures and soft switches for voice over IP.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers SAFE4CS (Service Availability Forum Environment 4 Continuous Services) is the first SAF compliant middleware and development tool. It provides both a development and an operating interface for developing common, standardized, carrier grade telecom infrastructures for any application and on common operating systems and servers. SAFE4CS provides the developer with modular, pre-built services and standards compliant APIs to assist in building telecom application solutions quickly. SAFE4CS also transparently interfaces telecom applications with standard operating systems and hardware architectures, allowing the customer to select the current, best price performance at the lowest cost. SAFE4CS is compliant with the emerging standard specifications of the Service Availability Forum for open high-availability middleware interfaces. This standards compliant platform is based on field-proven technology offered by Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

"There is a growing demand from telecom equipment manufacturers for a fully-integrated, carrier grade solution based on open industry standards, and our solution meets these growing market requirements," said Jim Pertzborn, vice president of IBM eServer Telecommunications Solutions, Systems and Technology Group. "We are delighted to work with leading companies like Fujitsu Siemens Computers to provide an integrated, standards-based platform for both application development and highly-available telecom operations. It is a practical, affordable solution available to our customers today."

As a development platform, the combined Fujitsu Siemens Computers SAFE4CS and BladeCenter T solution will help simplify application development and lower development costs for equipment manufacturers. Developers can avoid the high costs of developing and supporting proprietary, high-maintenance vertical technology stacks for each application that includes proprietary middleware, high-availability software, operating systems and hardware platforms. This allows equipment manufacturers to focus on enhancing core competencies in telecom application development for network service providers.

IBM's Blade Center T and Fujitsu Siemens Computers SAFE4CS offer published application and hardware interfaces based on industry standard specifications from the SAForum (Service Availability Forum). These application programming and operating environment interfaces provide the developer with easy to use access to pre-built services and features for easy porting and integration. The combined platform offers telecom equipment manufacturers and their customers, the service providers and large enterprises, these major benefits:

--Lower development costs with interfaces to reusable standard components

--Shorter product development cycles for faster market entry

--Option to offer lower market prices

--More efficient use of their development budgets

--Use of low cost, standard hardware platforms