BUSINESS
IBM unveils eServer line in Ireland
05-10-2000
by Aoidin Scully
IBM unveiled its next generation of servers for the e-business world to the Irish marketplace on Thursday.
IBM eServer features mainframe-class reliability and scalability, support of open standards for the development of new applications, and capacity on demand for managing e-business, according to Colm Humphreys, Channels and Marketing Manager for IBM Ireland.
The new eServer brand will replace all the company's previous servers. The first eServer is the zSeries 900 -- the long awaited upgrade to its seventh generation of S/390 mainframes, which is able to handle 83 billion transactions per second. In addition, the AS/400 series will now be known as I series, the RS/6000 is now the P series, and the eServer X series scoops up the Netfinity and NUMA-Q Intel processor-based servers.
"Our old models were inadequate to help us address the challenges of the new economy," said Humphreys. "eServer allows us to compete aggressively in the e-business world. It provides the strengths of all our traditional servers in a single server." IBM will invest USD250 million over the next three years on marketing the brand, as well as USD 75 million on building customer awareness.
One of the main strengths of eServer, IBM claims, is its support for open systems, in particular Linux. "IBM's focus on application flexibility means that we support open systems standards, as well as pre-existing legacy systems," maintains Humphreys. "We have three migration centres in Europe that will work with customers to migrate to eServer, and also supply pre-testing services to underline our commitment to open systems." IBM recently donated a Linux OS mainframe to DCU, which the company hopes will encourage university students to develop Linux capabilities.
John Scully, IBM Ireland's Sales Director, rejected criticisms that the launch was no more than a renaming of existing server models. "We've introduced considerable enhancements to ensure our products meet the demands of the e-business infrastructure. For example, the number one prohibitor to e-business in Ireland has always been bandwidth. Now that that is being addressed, the next problem is electricity supply. Our new servers require as much power to run as it takes to operate a hairdryer."
The move is seen as an effort to combat Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard in the server market. The company said it now expects to hold the number one position in all leading server performance categories.
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