IBM Bows Systems

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, ZURICH, SINGAPORE, and NEW YORK -- IBM today announced a new mainframe to help mid-sized companies and customers in emerging markets jumpstart new application development efforts, consolidate IT server sprawl, and give qualified organizations a pay as you grow” financial platform to build the mainframe as the foundation of their new enterprise data center.

The IBM System z10 Business Class (z10 BC) mainframe was introduced today at press conferences in Johannesburg, South Africa; Zurich, Switzerland; and Singapore. Additionally, in support of clients’ needs for attractive financing options, IBM Global Financing is now offering “Why Wait,” a no-interest, no-payments program for 90 days deferral to support qualified customers acquiring the new z10 BC now through the end of 2008.

Designed as a powerful, entry-level version of the IBM System z10 Enterprise Class (z10 EC) mainframe announced earlier this year, the IBM z10 BC provides mid-sized clients with all the unique attributes of an IBM mainframe. For example, companies in emerging markets (such as South Africa and Singapore) or in hot industries (such as social networking or mobile commerce) – can now afford IBM’s flagship mainframe technology for under $100,000.

For customers seeking server consolidation options to cut costs, the IBM z10 BC delivers the capacity of up to 232 x86 servers, with 83% smaller footprint, up to 93% lower energy costs, and a much higher level of security, control and automation – allowing for up to 100% utilization.

Clients can also look to the IBM z10 BC as one of the industry’s most flexible architectures for today’s newest business and consumer applications, which are often created on different operating systems and various programming languages. With up to 130 capacity settings for running permanent and temporary workloads such as application hosting or testing efforts, the IBM z10 BC gives administrators an upgradeable system no matter how aggressively the business grows. For peak seasons, administrators can temporarily increase the system’s capacity for cost management. The IBM z10 BC also offers unique processors known as “specialty engines” that expand the use of the mainframe for popular SAP, Linux, Java applications, among others. With the IBM z10 BC operating as the company’s IT engine, business leaders will welcome cost savings from using current in-house staff for revenue-generating IT initiatives, such as application deployment.

From a performance standpoint, the IBM z10 BC is nearly 40% faster, has over 50% more total capacity and nearly four times the maximum memory compared to its predecessor, the largest IBM z9 BC. Continuing with the lineage of the IBM System z10 EC, the new IBM z10 BC holds most of the same technology innovations as the EC model – such as the Enterprise Quad Core z10 processor chip with hardware accelerators and cryptographic functions that are highly useful for commercial and financial applications.

For more general but critical workloads like email, the IBM z10 BC can support an incremental 1,000 e-mail users with the energy of a 100 watt light bulb. Specifically, IT simply activates one Domino “specialty engine” for up to 7,500 users. More importantly, both IT managers and end users will welcome the mainframe’s stellar availability and security benefits for seamless and fast email communications.

“Clients in a variety of industries in mature and emerging markets continue to invest in IBM mainframes to reduce energy costs, consolidate hardware, and securely manage the most world's most complex transactions. In fact, in 3Q'08, revenues from System z mainframe server products increased 25 percent compared with the year-ago period, with double-digit growth in all geographies. Total delivery of System z computing power, which is measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second), increased 49 percent,” said Anne Altman, general manager of System z at IBM.

IBM Corp.