Icarus Studios Partners With IBM to Upgrade Performance, Availability for Its Online Games

Market Wire, February, 2008

Icarus Studios has completed porting its database systems to the IBM (NYSE: IBM) Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) 11 for its game and virtual world data storage and retrieval, a critical component for delivering the 3D Internet reliability and performance that consumers demand.

Icarus works with leading entertainment companies, intellectual property owners, and e-learning customers, serving as a comprehensive resource center for builders of 3D virtual worlds, massively multiplayer online games, and simulation projects. Online games are a worldwide cultural phenomenon approaching 100 million users, and the rate of technological advancement and innovation in games software and hardware is becoming the benchmark for how consumers expect to interact with digital information.

Icarus Studios' licensee, Fallen Earth, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game currently in development, currently runs on IBM BladeCenter, IBM System x and IBM System Storage. To deliver an unparalleled game experience, Icarus then turned to IBM to upgrade from mySQL to a data server proven in both reliability and performance.

"We were impressed by how fast we were able to install and have IDS running in our data intensive environment," said Jim Hettinger, CEO, Icarus Studios. "Databases are the heart of any online game or virtual world, and we needed a cost effective, scalable, and reliable database to go along with our enterprise grade platform. IDS has excelled in all three of these areas and gives us the ability to scale across our expanding portfolio of MMOGs, Virtual Worlds, and e-learning projects."

IDS is known for its mainframe-like continuous availability and disaster recovery capabilities, delivering 99.999 percent availability. IDS is tuned to deliver a combination of increased performance, reliability and scalability, along with the ability to handle massive volumes of complex data at very high speeds -- essential capabilities in today's demanding, time-sensitive online games and virtual world environments.

"IBM offers the high performance, scalability and data availability required to deliver the best possible game experience to consumers, while keeping operating costs low," said Daniel Witteveen, East Coast executive, IBM Games and Interactive Entertainment. "Icarus Studios decision to migrate to Informix Dynamic Server represents a shift now underway in the database software market, with solution providers increasingly choosing IBM to better serve their customers."

IBM has a strong global focus on the media and entertainment industry across all of its services and products, serving all the major industry segments -- entertainment, publishing, information providers, media networks and advertising. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/media

About Icarus Studios

Icarus Studios is a technology-driven company dedicated to helping clients build virtual worlds, MMOGs, simulators, and 3D e-learning products. Its unique, next-generation technology makes Icarus a comprehensive resource center for anyone tasked with quickly creating virtual space. From complete project development to partnering with intellectual property owners, Icarus works within each client's time and budget to accomplish objectives in a fraction of historical development times. With an average of over fifteen years of experience building online worlds, Icarus' technical and design leadership delivers consistent quality. Icarus today employs over 65 professionals who are passionate about their industry and the quality of their work. For more information, contact www.icarusstudios.com .

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Media Contacts: Clay Helm IBM Media Relations 415-545-2212 clayhelm@us.ibm.com Doug Mealy for Icarus Studios Online Marketing and Public Relations dmealy@om-pr.com