ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/23/06 -- Today, IBM unveiled breakthrough hardware and software innovation to help automate the management of power consumption in the datacenter to improve power utilization and reduce energy costs. Part of this innovation is the introduction of a new line of IBM System x servers based on the next generation of IBM's Xtended Design Architecture (XDA), enabling up to 90 percent better application performance, and up to 163 percent better performance per watt. (1)

According to Robert Frances Group, power usage will be the number one issue for most large-company IT executives to address in the next two to four years, according to analysts.

"IBM is giving organizations the means to 'personalize' their power utilization," said Susan Whitney, general manager, IBM System x. "IBM has been pioneering superior system design to maximize energy efficiency for over 40 years. Now with PowerExecutive, clients can control how and where power is used across the datacenter."

IBM System x servers provide high performance, availability, manageability and flexibility advances on top of industry standard components. The new systems, including the x3650, x3550 and x3500, feature the latest in dual core processor technology and up to three times the memory expansion of the previous generation of systems.

IBM PowerExecutive is the first solution on the market that provides customers with the intelligence needed to effectively manage power consumption in the datacenter. PowerExecutive, an extension to IBM Director systems management software, allows clients to "meter" actual power usage and trend data for any single physical system or group of systems. Developed by IBM Research, PowerExecutive utilizes IBM-developed monitoring circuitry to help identify how much actual power is being used and the temperature of the system. The software is available across IBM's new System x servers introduced today, as well as its BladeCenter line of systems.

"Under-sizing power or cooling can bring an entire datacenter down, while over-sizing can mean millions in excessive cost," said IBM customer Mark E. Towfiq, president and CEO, InteleNet Communications Inc. "With PowerExecutive, we will be able to understand our actual power draw, as opposed to benchmarked power consumption, and effectively allocate and match power and thermal limits in our datacenter at the system, chassis or rack level. The tool will also help our systems automatically respond to a power shortage or outage."

Later this year, PowerExecutive 2.0 will also give clients the ability to cap the amount of power used by a single server or groups of servers to efficiently plan and utilize available power for maximum application performance.

With IBM's mainframe-inspired Xtended Design Architecture, the new IBM System x servers deliver a package of technology and systems management innovations on top of industry standard server components. The next generation XDA now features scalable CPU and memory design to support business growth and virtualization of multiple workloads, plus PowerExecutive power management innovation to improve power utilization and reduce energy costs.

"We have deployed IBM xSeries two-way rack servers in a Linux cluster to support our compute and data-intensive biomedical engineering research," said IBM customer Dr. Mitch Rosen chief technology officer, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia. "They deliver a great deal of computing power in a small form factor, perfect for our space-constrained environment. We are looking forward to the significant increase in performance that the new IBM System x platform will bring."

As customers continue to consolidate and virtualize workloads in the datacenter, supplying power to dense servers and keeping them cool will continue to be a priority. With IBM's simplified systems-management tools for industry-standard computing environments, including PowerExecutive, clients will be able to better optimize the performance and power consumption of these systems.

IBM's new System x servers and workstations introduced today, offer the latest in dual-core processor technology and up to three times the memory expansion of the previous generation of systems. They include:

--  System x3650 -- Stable business critical application server for
    workload consolidation; starting at US $2,124
--  System x3550 -- Application density for power managed datacenter
    performance; starting at US $1,921.
--  System x3500 -- Stable business critical application server for remote
    office management; starting at US $2,013.
    

IBM expects these systems to be available in early June 2006. Additional x86 systems for a variety of business computing needs will be introduced as part of the IBM System x portfolio and IBM Express portfolio in the coming months. Today's new systems complement IBM's overall System x portfolio. IBM announced new high-performance enterprise computing systems for virtualization, database, ERP and CRM applications on April 21, which are available now.

IBM Power Executive was introduced for IBM BladeCenter in November 2004 and is available today across the IBM System x line of servers introduced today, free of charge and available by download for customers.

For more information about IBM, go to: www.ibm.com

(1) Based on benchmark test results obtained running a Web server workload. Measurements were conducted by IBM using the x3650 and a previous-generation server. Actual results obtained in a customer environment will depend on the application workload for that environment.

Media contacts:
Vineeta Durani
IBM Corporation
415-545-2350
vdurani@us.ibm.com