IBM ships 2000th eServer p650 to discover financial services - Brief Article

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Feb 10, 2003

IBM has announced that in only two months since it became available, the 2000th eServer p650 has been purchased by Discover Financial Services.

This new eServer, the first to include IBM's newest POWER4+ microprocessor, is transforming the economics for midrange server customers by redefining the price/performance matrix; it's affordably priced without making any compromises on performance.

"Discover Financial Services has leveraged highly scalable computing power since the early 1990's," said Diane Offereins, executive vice president and CIO of Discover Financial Services. "Keeping with that tradition, we have invested in the newest and fastest technology. The POWER4+ microprocessor from IBM has the unique blend of speed and reliability to run our mission critical applications."

The eServer p650 was the first server to include IBM's latest 64-bit microprocessor, POWER4+, which takes advantage of the most advanced 0.13 micron fabrication process and contains over 180 million transistors. The POWER4+ chip is available in the eServer p650 with 1.2 and 1.45 gigahertz. IBM's POWER family of microprocessors is among the most widely used in the industry and can be found in Nintendo game consoles, Apple computers and some of the world's most powerful supercomputers and storage systems.

In addition, the eServer p650 offers great flexibility, with up to eight dynamic partitions. The p650 is designed to run the AIX 5L operating system and Linux simultaneously in separate partitions.

"The success of the eServer p650 sends a clear message that customers are embracing high-performing, feature-rich servers that don't break the bank," said Karl Freund, vice president, IBM eServer pSeries. "IBM's POWER architecture combined with logical partitioning capabilities and scalability provides a leap forward in price/performance and flexibility that enable IBM servers to meet the most stringent customer demands."