IBM Unveils New POWER5 eServer i5 550 With Flexible Pricing for Mid-Sized Businesses

IBM unveiled today a new POWER5 system, the eServer i5 550, a low-cost powerful server designed to provide mid-sized businesses with exceptional flexibility to closely match their IT purchases to their business needs.

The eServer i5 550 features a new Solution Edition, an attractively priced offering now available with select, leading Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). The new eServer i5 also delivers new capabilities for managing and optimizing its multiple operating systems through Virtualization Engine Systems Services.

The eServer i5 550 is designed to help businesses more easily and quickly simplify their IT environment by integrating applications across diverse operating systems. With the flexible pricing options, the eServer i5 550 provides greater choice for those businesses who need to mix and match applications that require multiple operating systems.

Specifically, the new eServer i5 550, a one-to-four way server that leverages the industry standard Power Architecture, features:

- New Systems Management Capabilities -- new Virtualization Engine System Services including IBM Director MultiPlatform, an open standards based management tool for centralizing IT management and monitoring multiple operating systems, and IBM Enterprise Workload Manager, a technology that isolates problems and optimizes the machine's application workload through a set of self-managing capabilities. Virtualization Engine is a set of technologies and services that help customers simplify and optimize their IT infrastructure and vastly improve the economics and operations of under-used IT assets. These new services are also now available across eServer i5 models 520 and 570.

- Flexible On Demand Pricing Options -- options to provide clients with exceptional flexibility to buy the amount and type of processing power they need. It provides clients more application choice through a greater selection of operating systems and the ability to choose operating systems based on their application need, not server choice.

- Solution Edition -- a specially priced offering available with the purchase of eligible Independent Software Vendor solutions. This offering is designed to help clients take advantage of the combined strength of IBM and the ISV when consolidating servers and business applications. The Solution Edition is currently available with software purchases from Clear Technologies, Inc., IBS, Integrated Distribution Solutions, LLC., Intentia, Lawson Software, Manhattan Associates, MAPICS, PeopleSoft and SSA Global.

- Domino Edition -- an offering now available for clients migrating from Microsoft Exchange Servers or consolidating Domino servers. The Domino Edition is competitively priced and features Capacity on Demand (two active processors are included in the Edition) and i5/OS licenses.

"Today's announcement combines the industry's most powerful hardware technology, solutions from leading ISVs and flexible on demand pricing options to provide our clients with the best possible solution for their business," said Cecelia Marrese, vice president of marketing, IBM eServer iSeries, Systems and Technology Group. "This helps our clients focus on their business objectives, instead of having their business be driven by their IT environment."

IBM is also announcing additional options to integrate and manage Intel-based Linux servers in the eServer i5. Linux, in addition to Windows, is now supported on the Integrated xSeries Server (IXS) and Adapter (IXA) and extends integration options to new, lower-cost eServer xSeries servers -- including IBM's rack-dense x346 -- with a new Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA). This new option enables new choices for clients and continues to demonstrate the leadership in application and operating system choice offered by eServer i5 servers.

"With the eServer i5 550 and unique Solution Edition, IBM once again delivers a platform that addresses the solution needs of mid-sized businesses. Customers also receive the added benefits of leading performance, capabilities and very competitive pricing," said Muditha Karunatileka, Executive Vice President of Sales for Sirius Computer Solutions. "By providing a total solution, we can help deliver real business value to our customers and help them achieve their business goals."

The eServer i5 family of servers, fueled with POWER5 microprocessors and Virtualization Engine technology, is the next generation in the iSeries family of servers. With Micro-Partitioning, Capacity on Demand and support for multiple operating systems including IBM i5/OS, Linux, AIX 5L and Windows (through IXA and IXS), clients are turning to the eServer i5 system to deploy new applications and simplify their IT infrastructure.

The IBM eServer i5 550 is planned to be available on September 10, 2004. Prices are available by contacting IBM.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com. For more information on IBM's on demand strategy, visit http://www.ibm.com/ondemand.