Sun Introduces Its First Nebs Level 3 Rack Server Powered By The AMD Opteron Processor, Offering Industry's Broadest OS Support, Including Solaris 10

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today introduced the Netra X4200 M2 server, Sun's first Network Equipment Building Standard (NEBS) Level 3 Certified Rack Server powered by the AMD Opteron processor and offering the industry's broadest operating system (OS) support, including the Solaris 10 OS, Red Hat and SUSE Linux, and Windows. Based on the Sun Fire X4200 M2 server announced in October 2006, the Netra X4200 M2 server is Sun's first Netra rackmount server developed with industry-standard x64 (x86, 64-bit) architecture.


The Netra X4200 M2 server offers some of the industry's highest storage and memory capacity in a 2U, 20-inch package -- with up to four, 146GB SAS drives and up to 32GB of memory -- and ships ready to support the new Sun Multithreaded Networking Card to enable significantly higher network throughput. Sun will be adding support for the Sun Multithreaded 10 GbE Networking Technology to the Netra family of servers, delivering application performance improvements of up to four times Sun's current network interfaces when paired with x64 or SPARC multi-core servers. The Sun Multithreaded 10 GbE Networking Technology is designed to take advantage of the Solaris OS' threaded design for optimized throughput, regardless of the processor.

"Adding x64 rackmount architecture to the Netra server family extends the choice of platforms for our customers and partners in the telco space," said Mark Butler, Netra systems product line director, Sun Microsystems. "Now telco companies that want industry-standard hardware can develop their solutions on Sun ATCA blades or rackmount servers, the broadest offering of carrier grade platforms in the industry."

"This next deployment of the Sun Netra platform -- the X4200 M2 -- is quite impressive, both from a performance and quality point of view. It not only leverages the throughput and power of AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture but demonstrates Sun’s commitment to our continuing relationship," said Peter Robinson, telecom segment manager, AMD. "Sun and AMD have a long history of providing industry-standard x86 hardware to many vertical markets, and we will continue to work together to extend such offerings to the telco industry."

Customers and ISVs Show Support for Sun Netra Family

The Netra X4200 M2 server can be used to create solutions such as media servers, voice over IP (VoIP), signaling gateway controllers, element management systems, network traffic analysis systems, operation management systems and data management systems. Siemens Networks is deploying Netra X4200 M2 servers to run its VoIP applications.

"Siemens Networks has been validating the Netra X4200 M2 server in our laboratories for several months now," said Joachim Ungruh, Senior Vice President, VoIP Solutions, Siemens Networks. "While we are still in the platform verification phase, it has exceeded our performance expectations. The Netra X4200 M2 will significantly enhance the competitiveness of our Consumer and Business VoIP solution offerings, continuing to reinforce Siemens' strategy to leverage the technology advancements of market-leading computing platforms."

A number of ISVs are developing applications for the Netra X4200 M2 server, including Adax, AppGate Network Security, Appium, jNetX and Surf. In addition, Sun's ATCA products are being used to create solutions for large wireless OAM&P systems, multimedia messaging servers, next-generation IMS platforms, wireless access and next-generation gateways. Sun intends to make its leading Multithreaded 10 GbE Networking Technology available across the ATCA portfolio in the near future. The Netra Data Plane Software Suite announced in December is also gaining support from leading ISVs, including SDC Labs, Surf and Teja Technologies. For more information on ISV support of the Netra X4200 M2, please visit: http://www.sun.com/servers/netra/x4200/perspectives.xml. For more information on ISV endorsements for Sun's ATCA products, please visit: http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/boards/cp3060/perspectives.xml

Availability and Pricing

The 2-socket version of the Netra X4200 M2 server is available now, with entry-level pricing starting at $9,845. The 1-socket version is scheduled to be available in May with entry-level pricing starting at $6,145. For more information on the Netra X4200 M2, please visit: http://www.sun.com/netra/x4200. To learn more about Sun's entire Netra ATCA blade server family, please visit: http://www.sun.com/atca. For more information on support for Sun's OEM customers, please visit: http://www.sun.com/oem/

CSCO: Cisco Commences Cash Tender Offer for WebEx at $57.00

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Wonder Acquisition Corp., has commenced its tender offer for all outstanding shares of WebEx Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: WEBX), at a price of $57.00 per share net to the seller in cash without interest, less brokerage fees and less any required withholding taxes. On March 15, 2007, Cisco and WebEx announced that they had signed a definitive merger agreement for Cisco to acquire WebEx.

The Board of Directors of WebEx had previously unanimously approved the merger agreement and the transactions contemplated thereby, including the tender offer; declared that it is in the best interests of WebEx's stockholders for WebEx to enter into the merger agreement and the transactions contemplated thereby; declared that the tender offer is fair to WebEx's stockholders; and recommended that holders of shares of WebEx common stock accept the offer and tender their shares in the offer.

The tender offer is subject to certain conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase referenced below, including a minimum share tender condition, the expiration or termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period, and the obtainment of applicable approvals under the antitrust, competition or merger control laws of other countries, and other customary conditions, as set forth in the merger agreement.

Unless the tender offer is extended, the tender offer and any withdrawal rights to which WebEx's stockholders may be entitled will expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on April 23, 2007 (which is the end of the day on April 23, 2007). Following the acceptance for payment of shares in the tender offer and completion of the transactions contemplated in the merger agreement, WebEx will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cisco.

The complete terms and conditions of the tender offer are set forth in the Offer to Purchase, Letter of Transmittal and other related materials filed by Cisco and Wonder Acquisition Corp. with the SEC on March 27, 2007. In addition, on March 27, 2007, WebEx filed a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC relating to the tender offer. Copies of the Offer to Purchase, Letter of Transmittal and other related materials, including the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement, are available free of charge from Georgeson Inc., the information agent for the tender offer, toll-free at (888) 264-7052 (banks and brokers call (212) 440-9800), or Lehman Brothers Inc., the dealer manager for the tender offer, at (888) 610-5877 (toll free). Computershare Trust Company of New York is acting as depositary for the tender offer.

Konica Minolta and GE Form Strategic Alliance to Accelerate the Commercialization of OLED Lighting

Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc., Konica Minolta Technology Center, Inc. (collectively KM) and the General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) today announced that they have signed a strategic alliance agreement to accelerate the development and commercialization of OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) devices for lighting applications. The goal is to bring OLED lighting to market within the next 3 years.

Masatoshi Matsuzaki, President, Konica Minolta Technology Center, Inc., said, “Having such unprecedented attractive features as flexible, thin, light weight, and sheet form, OLED lighting is considered one of the most promising new business opportunities for us in the future. We are delighted to collaborate with GE to accelerate the development and launching of this revolutionary new lighting technology.”

Michael Idelchik, Vice President, Advanced Technology Programs, GE Global Research, said, “The alliance of KM, a world leader in imaging products, and GE, a global leader in lighting products, represents an extraordinary opportunity to make the commercialization of OLED lighting products a reality. Both companies have achieved significant advances in OLED technologies at the research and development stage. Now, we will pool our substantial resources and expertise to accelerate the development of this transformational technology.”

OLEDs are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes, which illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. They represent the next evolution in lighting products. Their widespread design capabilities will provide an entirely different way for people to light their homes or businesses. Moreover, OLEDs have the potential to deliver dramatically improved levels of efficiency and environmental performance, while achieving at least the same quality of illumination found in traditional products in the marketplace today.

On June 30, 2006, KM announced that it had successfully developed a white OLED with a world record power efficiency of 64 lumens per watt at 1,000 candela per square meter—a brightness which is appropriate for lighting applications. Prior to this development, KM developed its own highly efficient and long-life blue phosphorescent materials. Applying these material technologies, along with multi-layer design technology and innovative optical design technology, KM succeeded in developing an OLED having a practical light emission level of approximately 10,000 hours.

In addition to material technology and optical design technology, KM has been developing the ultra-high barrier film fabrication technology to enable high productivity. Superb coating technology nurtured through the development of photographic film and display materials also plays an important role in the development of highly productive OLEDs. Currently, research and development for its commercialization is under way.

GE, as part of its ecomagination initiative, has made substantial investments in OLED research that have resulted in world records for OLED lighting device size and efficiency. In 2004, GE researchers were able to demonstrate an OLED device that was fully functional as a 24 inch by 24-inch panel, which produced 1,200 lumens of light with an efficiency on par with today’s incandescent bulb technology. This was the first demonstration that OLED technology could potentially be used for lighting applications. Since then, GE has more than doubled the level of OLED efficiency using device architectures that are scalable to a large area and can be produced cost-effectively.

In addition to increasing efficiency, GE has focused on developing all the requirements—ranging from plastic film substrates, ultra-high barrier coatings, and fabrication processes and equipment to enable the high speed, cost-effective “roll-to-roll” manufacturing—required to produce large-area OLED lighting.

GE Consumer & Industrial Vice President Michael Petras said, “In a world demanding higher standards for energy efficiency and environmental performance, OLED lighting has the potential to become a major lighting source on both fronts. And because OLED lighting is soft and diffused, it will create some exciting application opportunities for designers and specifiers. The applications are numerous, ranging from ceiling lighting for office and residential applications to interior automotive and aircraft lighting to many specialty lighting applications such as task lighting, sign and various forms of interior retail lighting.”

In the coming months, KM and GE will further accelerate research and development of OLED lighting by sharing technologies and knowledge. KM’s technology center will lead the research and development activities for KM. GE Global Research, GE’s centralized research and development organization, and GE’s Consumer and Industrial business division will lead research and development for GE.

About Konica Minolta

Konica Minolta Group offers diverse products and services for new digital imaging environments in a wide range of fields. Our business domain is broad, including office equipment, optical devices, medical imaging, graphic imaging and measuring instruments. Its largest office equipment business sector consecutively offers advanced network document solutions, taking advantage of its strengths in high-speed, color and networking technologies.

At Konica Minolta Technology Center, Inc., we are actively developing unique and cutting-edge technologies that will expand the world of imaging, on the basis of proprietary materials, optical, nano-fabrication and imaging technologies. Phosphorescent materials and OLED devices are examples of the notable development activities underway with potential for use in various applications. Konica Minolta’s core technologies are being applied in the development of many other next generation display components and ubiquitous imaging equipment. Visit Konica Minolta at http://konicaminolta.com

About GE Global Research

GE Global Research was the first industrial research lab in the United States and is one of the world's most diversified research centers, providing innovative technology for all of GE's businesses. Global Research has been the cornerstone of GE technology for more than 100 years, developing breakthrough innovations in areas such as medical imaging, energy generation, jet engines, advanced materials and lighting. GE Global Research is headquartered in Niskayuna, New York and has facilities in Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; and Munich, Germany. Visit GE Global Research at www.ge.com/research

About GE Consumer & Industrial

GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram®, Profile™ GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™, Reveal®, GE Edison™ and Energy Smart™ consumer brands, and Entellisys™ industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com

NOTE: For a demonstration of OLED lighting, please visit GE’s technology blog, From Edison’s Desk, at www.grcblog.com

GE Unveils New Advanced Technology Center and Global Services Facility

GE Energy’s (NYSE: GE) nuclear business today opened a new advanced technology center and a global field services facility as the company continues to expand its Wilmington, N.C. site to prepare for new reactor orders and broaden its services capabilities for utility customers.

The advanced technology center will employ hundreds of engineers, project managers and support personnel dedicated to advanced design work and implementation support for the commercial launch of GE’s next-generation technology, the ESBWR. The technology center also will support GE’s ABWR projects around the world.

Andy White, president and CEO of GE Energy’s nuclear business, and U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre (D – N.C., 7th District), whose district includes Wilmington, participated in the grand opening event.

As utilities prepare to invest in new commercial reactors, White said it is important that GE demonstrate its ability to complete projects on time and on budget for its global customer base.

“Our new advanced technology center will further enhance our ability to coordinate multiple reactor projects, both in the United States and around the world,”

White said. “It’s a key part of our strategy to have the most extensive and advanced engineering, design and production capabilities to meet customer requirements.”

With reactor projects creating thousands of construction and permanent engineering jobs, GE’s advanced technology center also will play an important role in supporting state and local economic development growth for decades to come.

“With the ongoing resurgence in nuclear energy, it is crucial we support the efforts of GE to be in the best position possible to prepare for new reactor orders, which will yield significant economic benefits for our communities,” Rep. McIntyre said.

Utilizing natural circulation and passive safety systems, the ESBWR is more efficient to operate, features a smaller building footprint and is less expensive to build, with a projected 36-month construction schedule from the pouring of concrete to first-fuel load.

GE’s Field Services Operation Essential to Customers’ Success

In addition to the advanced technology center, GE unveiled a new global services center dedicated to supporting GE’s services business and its customers around the world.

“By providing the best possible service to existing nuclear power plants, GE’s commitment to excellence is reinforced with our customers, many of which are now preparing to invest in new reactor projects,” White said.

By optimizing service capabilities during outages, GE will continue to help customers reduce the amount of time that a reactor needs to be offline for maintenance while extending the operating period of the reactor between outages, thus potentially saving the operator millions of dollars.

For example, two GE-designed boiling water reactor (BWR) units at Exelon Nuclear’s LaSalle County Generating Station in Illinois recently set new world records for the longest continuous operation of light water reactors. The LaSalle plant produces enough electricity for 2.3 million homes.

GE Invests in Preparation for New Reactor Orders

Since 2003, GE has hired 500 new engineers and other personnel in preparation for new unit orders. GE also has executed a strategic consolidation in Wilmington of several existing GE nuclear facilities located around the United States.

GE’s ESBWR and ABWR technology has already been selected for five potential projects for new commercial reactors in the United States. The ESBWR is being considered for deployment by several U.S. utilities and in a number of other countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently performing its design certification review of the ESBWR. GE recently submitted its third revision of the Design Certification Document on schedule to the NRC for review.

The ABWR is the world’s first commercially proven, Generation III reactor design and has been licensed for construction in the United States, Japan and Taiwan.

GE’s nuclear business has been a leading provider of light water reactor technology and services for more than 50 years, helping owners of both boiling and pressurized water reactors safely operate their facilities with greater efficiency and output.

About GE Energy

GE Energy (www.ge.com/energy ) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies, with 2006 revenue of $19 billion. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, GE Energy works in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels.

Numerous GE Energy products are certified under ecomagination, GE’s corporate-wide initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges.

ORCL: Oracle Announces Oracle-Sun Information Appliance Foundations

Oracle today announced the Oracle-Sun Information Appliance Foundations that allow joint Oracle and Sun customers to reduce the risk and deployment time of data warehousing solutions based on Oracle(r) Database 10g and Sun servers, storage and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS).
The Oracle-Sun Information Appliance Foundations are reference configurations that provide a recommended database, server, and storage mix for a customer's specific requirements. Implementing an Oracle-Sun Information Appliance Foundation-based data warehouse solution can decrease customers' buying cycle by weeks and streamline data warehouse implementations.

As part of Oracle's Information Appliance Initiative, these reference configurations have carefully combined CPU resources, memory, I/O bandwidth and disks into a well-balanced design that will help prevent performance or capacity bottlenecks. Oracle and its hardware partners have developed configurations for data warehouses with varying raw data, average concurrent user and workload complexity. These configurations have the capability to handle data warehouses ranging from 300 gigabytes to 10 terabytes, and from light to heavy workloads. The Oracle-Sun Information Appliance Foundations offer multiple solutions for each set of requirements allowing customers to quickly choose among vertical (single server systems), horizontal (clustered server systems) configurations and SPARC(tm) or x64 (x86, 64-bit) architectures running Solaris(tm) or other supported operating systems. In addition to the servers, the Foundations also cover Sun's StorageTek disk arrays.

"These Foundations provide our customers a choice of fast, scalable and reliable solutions to run their data warehousing systems," said Willie Hardie, vice president of Database Product Marketing, Oracle. "They're designed to help take the risk out of building a data warehouse that can meet short term requirements and provide a path for future growth. This announcement marks another significant milestone in delivering business value for Sun and Oracle customers."

"Sun and Oracle's joint effort improves architecture design and selection processes for IT departments, making it easy to implement well-designed, right-sized data warehouse solutions built upon Sun's robust infrastructure offerings including the Solaris 10 operating system," said Juan Carlos Soto, vice president of market development at Sun. "Customers are sure to benefit from this timely and economic approach, making these joint reference configurations the smart way to pick the optimal solution for their business."

For more information about the Oracle and Sun Reference Configuration program customers can go to: http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/sun.html. For more information about the Oracle Information Appliance Initiative, go to: http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/oiai.html .

About Oracle Database 10g
The only database designed for grid computing, Oracle Database 10g delivers superior performance, scalability, availability, security and ease of management on a low-cost grid of industry standard storage and servers. Oracle Database 10g is designed to be effectively deployed on everything from small blade servers to the biggest SMP servers and clusters of all sizes. It features automated management capabilities for easy, cost-effective operation. Oracle Database 10g's unique ability to manage data from traditional business information to XML documents and spatial/location information makes it the ideal choice to power online transaction processing, decision support and content management applications.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com .

SY: Spanish Postal Service Deploys Sybase iAnywhere RFID Technology

Sybase iAnywhere today announced that Correos, the Spanish Postal Service, has deployed its RFID Anywhere™ software platform in one of the largest RFID projects in Europe. Using RFID Anywhere, Correos has introduced a radio frequency control system, called Q-RFID, in 16 Automated Processing Centers (APCs) throughout Spain, and in four other bulk Admission Centers, enabling the company to ensure quality control and the traceability of postal deliveries.


“The use of RFID Anywhere enhances Correos' competitiveness as a result of more efficient management of postal processes and an improvement in the quality of its services,” said Regina Defarges, organizational deputy director, Correos. “We’re proud to be the forerunner in the use of RFID technology in the postal industry.”


Correos’ successful implementation of one of the largest RFID projects in Europe highlights the potential of RFID solutions. The state-controlled company required its RFID solution to be integrated into the Correos computer systems, resulting in the purchase of 13,000 passive electronic labels and installation of more than 2,300 permanent antennas and over 331 readers for the 16 APCs and the additional Admission Centers. The RFID Anywhere-powered solution gives Correos the ability to monitor the status and transit time of a letter at each stage of the delivery process, allowing the company to oversee the entire process and adopt corrective measures when a fault is detected in the system. Correos is one of the earliest to use RFID technology to comply with the standards set by the European Union (ETSI EN 302 208-1 and EPC GEN 2) and to be approved at the state level by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade.

”The postal industry provides an excellent example of how RFID technology can increase process efficiencies resulting in improved delivery times and streamlining of operating procedures,” said Martyn Mallick, director of RFID Technologies, Sybase iAnywhere. “Correos chose RFID Anywhere for its superior ability to coordinate a vast number of RFID readers in a dense environment and to integrate business logic and processes with the latest automatic data collection and sensor technologies.”

To learn more about RFID Anywhere, please visit the Sybase iAnywhere RFID World 2007 booth #1425. Additionally, director of RFID Technologies, Martyn Mallick, will be speaking on “Tracking Mixed-Value Assets: The Business Case and Technology Requirements,” on Tuesday, March 27 at 3:30 PM. To join the very popular RFID Anywhere developer community and to download a free development copy of RFID Anywhere, visit www.sybase.com/products/mobilesolutions/rfid_anywhere

SY: Sybase iAnywhere Drives RFID Innovation in Vehicle-Mounted Terminals

Sybase iAnywhere today announced new enhancements to RFID Anywhere™, the company’s software infrastructure that provides a customizable environment for developing and managing robust, highly-distributed radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions. With RFID Anywhere 3.1, Sybase iAnywhere continues to break new ground with advanced on-device capabilities for vehicle-mounted terminals, allowing these devices to work autonomously, dramatically reducing the amount of data that needs to be communicated back to enterprise servers. RFID Anywhere 3.1 has been certified to work with and will support LXE’s RX2 forklift RFID devices.

“Sybase iAnywhere truly understands the requirements for mobile and vehicle-mounted based RFID applications,” said Dick Sorenson, RFID director, LXE. “RFID Anywhere 3.1 combines technologies such as RFID, voice, mobile, location-awareness, business intelligence and barcode scanning, making it the perfect fit for LXE rugged mobile RFID readers, enabling customers to rapidly develop, deploy and manage mobile RFID warehouse applications.”

LXE provides rugged wireless computers and data collection solutions that improve supply chain performance. LXE’s RX2 rugged lift truck-mounted RFID reader is an easy-to-install, vehicle-mounted RFID reader designed for RFID-enabled forklift pallet movement applications such as shipping, receiving, picking and put-aways. LXE’s ARIA (Adaptive Recognition and Information Assurance) solutions combine the strengths of multiple technologies, such as RFID, voice recognition, sensors and wearable computing, with next generation software applications and new business processes so that warehouse operators can execute warehouse transactions more naturally, efficiently and effectively. ARIA-enabled solutions built on the RFID Anywhere technology infrastructure will achieve new levels of efficiency, velocity, visibility and accuracy in supply chain execution.

“As we continue to work with customers and partners such as LXE, there is a growing demand to support multiple sensor technologies, including voice interactions,” said Martyn Mallick, director of RFID technologies, Sybase iAnywhere. “With RFID Anywhere 3.1 we continue to lead the market by providing an intelligent client that allows these devices to filter, smooth and report on data in real-time without human interaction. This is a vast improvement over current mobile and vehicle-mounted implementations.”

RFID Anywhere 3.1 offers key enhancements in a number of areas:

• Enhanced support for vehicle-mounted devices, including the LXE RX2 forklift RFID device, providing enhanced on-device functionality, including smoothing implementation, unattended client, automatic start, the ability to work both online and offline, and extended mobile device events


• Updated connectors for Active RFID and RTLS devices to support the INCITS T20 standard


• New support for the Point Six temperature sensor


• Enhancing support for passive RFID with updates to existing hardware connectors and new hardware connectors for Siemens SIMATIC® RF


• Administrator console improvements including the ability to deploy device firmware updates

Availability
Sybase iAnywhere plans to make RFID Anywhere 3.1 available in April 2007. To learn more, please visit the Sybase iAnywhere RFID World 2007 booth #1425. To see a live demo of this technology in action, visit LXE at RFID World 2007 booth #910. Additionally, director of RFID technologies, Martyn Mallick, will be speaking on “Tracking Mixed-Value Assets: The Business Case and Technology Requirements,” on Tuesday, March 27 at 3:30 PM. To join the very popular RFID Anywhere developer community and to download a free development copy of RFID Anywhere, visit www.sybase.com/products/mobilesolutions/rfid_anywhere

About RFID Anywhere
RFID Anywhere simplifies the development, deployment, configuration and management tasks for highly distributed, multi-site, intelligent sensor networks, and abstracts the interaction with the physical network of devices. With support for over forty devices, this powerful infrastructure enables the creation of intelligent sensor networks out-of-the-box. By using RFID Anywhere, sensors are able to work together as an intelligent network by combining, organizing and coordinating these technologies through a common management structure, advanced feature set and event-driven development framework.

About Sybase iAnywhere
Sybase iAnywhere enables success at the front lines of business. The company holds worldwide market leadership positions in mobile and embedded databases, mobile management and security, mobile middleware and synchronization, and Bluetooth® and infrared protocol technologies. Tens of millions of mobile devices and over 20,000 customers and partners rely on the company’s “Always Available” technologies, including SQL Anywhere, Afaria and OneBridge. iAnywhere is a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc. (NYSE:SY).

CSCO: AMD Enhances Business Performance with Cisco Intelligent Networked Manufacturing Solutions

Advanced Micro Devices Export Sdn. Bhd., the manufacturing facility of Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), has adopted Cisco® Intelligent Networked Manufacturing Solutions to enhance efficiency and reduce lead times in its manufacturing cycle.

Based on a single open, intelligent, standards-based Ethernet platform, the Cisco Intelligent Networked Manufacturing infrastructure helps AMD link together collaborative applications that integrate information and processes spanning the entire manufacturing workflow. These solutions increase visibility and flexibility across the four major parts of a manufacturing organization: product development, supply chain management, production management, and sales and service management.

AMD is a leading global provider of innovative microprocessor solutions for computing, communications and consumer electronics markets. The company has a manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, which assembles AMD microprocessors and employs more than 800 employees.

At the heart of AMD's infrastructure is the Cisco Ethernet to the Factory (EttF) solution, which bridges the gap between the corporate office and the production floor, allowing AMD to make strategic business decisions that are backed by real-time data from the plant floor. As an end-to-end solution, Cisco EttF allows highly secure, real-time visibility between the production floor and enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply-chain management (SCM) systems. It delivers the flexibility that allows customers to change orders or specifications without compromising the security and performance of existing production processes.

In addition to EttF, AMD also deployed a Cisco Unified Communications solution that has improved mobility collaboration throughout the company's operations, particularly in the clean room. A clean room is one of the most important requirements of precision parts assembly. The solution, which includes Cisco Unified IP Phones and a wireless Cisco Aironet® wireless network, enables AMD staff to communicate in the clean room using the Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920. It is the only certified wireless phone allowed in that environment due to its low radiation emissions.*

In addition, with their increased mobility, most employees can now access information from wherever they are, saving significant time. Additional benefits include the increased efficiency of a single network that supports voice and data, which has in turn reduced the total cost of ownership as well as administrative costs.

"AMD is a model for how the manufacturing industry can make the most of networking technologies. The Intelligent Networked Manufacturing strategy enables manufacturing companies to take business efficiency to new levels even in physically challenging environments. By working closely with AMD, Cisco, together with the systems integrator, HP, was able to propose solutions that met its rigorous requirements," said Kumaram Singaram, Cisco's managing director for Malaysia.

* The radio module in the Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920 is compliant with the requirements addressing RF exposure from radio frequency devices. These guidelines were developed by the industry based on guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO). The phone operates at power levels one-fifth to one-sixth of those in most standard cellular, Personal Communications Service (PCS), or Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phones.

INTC: Intel To Build 300mm Wafer Fabrication Facility In China

Intel Corporation today announced plans to build a 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fabrication facility (fab) in the coastal Northeast China city of Dalian in Liaoning Province. The $2.5 billion investment for the factory designated Fab 68 will become Intel's first wafer fab in Asia and adds significant investment to Intel's existing operations in China.

"China is our fastest-growing major market and we believe it's critical that we invest in markets that will provide for future growth to better serve our customers," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. "Fab 68 will be our first new wafer fab at a new site in 15 years. Intel has been involved in China for more than 22 years and over that time we’ve invested in excess of $1.3 billion in assembly test facilities and research and development. This new investment will bring our total to just under $4 billion, making Intel one of the largest foreign investors in China."

Not since 1992 with the construction of Fab 10 in Ireland has Intel built a fab from the ground up at a brand new site. Construction on Fab 68 is scheduled to begin later this year with production projected to begin in the first half of 2010. Initial production will be dedicated to chipsets to support Intel's core microprocessor business.

"This is one of the major cooperative projects between China and the United States in the area of integrated circuits manufacturing in recent years. The project will further strengthen Intel's leadership position in the semiconductor manufacturing in the world. At the same time, the investment in Dalian will have a positive impact to the regional economic development and the development of integrated circuits industry in the old industrial base of northeast China," said Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission. "We welcome Intel and other multinational companies to invest and cooperate with China. We support Intel's initiative to expand and strengthen cooperation with relevant parties in a number of areas, such as talent training, technology standards, improved information technology for rural areas and digital health, to promote the mutual benefit and win-win of Intel and the information industry of China, and to achieve the goal of growing together."

Dalian Mayor Xia Deren said, "As an open city on China's coastline, Dalian provides many geographic advantages as well as existing infrastructure and services for foreign investment. We are very excited Intel has chosen Dalian to build a wafer fabrication facility. This investment will not just impact Dalian's social and economic development, but will generate a significant and positive impact on the economic and industrial structure in Northeast China."

When completed, Fab 68 will become part of Intel's manufacturing network that includes eight 300mm factories in 2010 with other fabs located in the United States, Ireland and Israel. Manufacturing with 300mm wafers dramatically increases the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost compared with more commonly used 200mm (eight-inch) wafers. The bigger wafers lower production cost per chip while diminishing overall use of resources. Using 300mm manufacturing technology consumes 40 percent less energy and water per chip than a 200mm wafer factory.

IBM Researchers Demonstrate World's Fastest Optical Chipset

At the 2007 Optical Fiber Conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientists will reveal a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than optical components available today.

The breakthrough could transform how data is accessed, shared and used across the Web for corporate and consumer networks. The transceiver is fast enough to reduce the download time for a typical high definition feature-length film to a single second compared to 30 minutes or more.

The ability to move information at blazing speeds of 160 Gigabits -- or 160 billion bits of information in a single second -- provides a glimpse of a new era of high-speed connectivity that will transform communications, computing and entertainment. Optical networking offers the potential to dramatically improve data transfer rates by speeding the flow of data using light pulses, instead of sending electrons over wires.

"The explosion in the amount of data being transferred, when downloading movies, TV shows, music or photos, is creating demand for greater bandwidth and higher speeds in connectivity," said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president, Science & Technology, IBM Research. "Greater use of optical communications is needed to address this issue. We believe our optical transceiver technology may provide the answer."

As the amount of data transmitted over networks continues to grow, researchers have been looking for ways to make the use of optical signals more practical. The ability to use these signals could offer previously unheard of amounts of bandwidth and enhanced signal fidelity compared to current electrical data links. By shrinking and integrating the components into one package, and building them with standard low-cost, high-volume chip manufacturing techniques, IBM is making optical connectivity viable for widespread use.

For example, the technology could be integrated onto printed circuit boards to allow the components within an electronic system – such as a PC or set top box -- to communicate much faster, dramatically enhancing the performance of the system itself.

To achieve this new level of integration in the chipset, IBM researchers built an optical transceiver with driver and receiver integrated circuits in current CMOS technology, the same standard, high-volume, low-cost technology used for most chips today. They then coupled it with other necessary optical components made in more exotic materials, such as indium phosphide (InP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), into one, integrated package only 3.25 by 5.25 millimeters in size.

This compact design provides both a high number of communications channels as well as very high speeds per channel, resulting in an amount of information transmitted per unit area of card space taken up by the chipset (the ultimate measure of viability for practical use) that is the highest ever. This transceiver chipset is designed to enable low cost optics by attaching to an optical printed circuit board employing densely spaced polymer waveguide channels using mass assembly processes.

The report on this work, “160-Gb/s, 16-Channel Full-Duplex, Single-Chip CMOS Optical Transceiver,” by C.L. Schow, F.E. Doany, O. Liboiron-Ladouceur, C. Baks, D.M. Kuchta, L. Schares, R. John, and J.A. Kash of IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. will be presented on March 29 at the 2007 Optical Fiber Conference in Anaheim. This work was partially funded by Defense Advanced Research Project Agency through the Chip to Chip Optical Interconnect (C2OI) program.

About the IBM Research Division
IBM Research is the world's largest information technology research organization, with about 3,000 scientists and engineers in eight labs in six countries. IBM has produced more research breakthroughs than any other company in the IT industry.

Oracle Sues SAP

Oracle filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court in the Northern District of California against SAP. Among the claims made against SAP are violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy.

Read the complaint (PDF)

SEC Charges American Stock Exchange and Former Chairman and CEO Salvatore Sodano with Failing to Exercise Regulatory Oversight Responsibilities

The Securities and Exchange Commission today issued a settled cease-and-desist order against American Stock Exchange LLC for failing to enforce compliance with securities laws and rules and failing to comply with its record-keeping obligations. In the order, the Commission found that from at least 1999 through June 2004, the Amex failed adequately to surveil for violations of order handling rules by Amex members and failed to keep and furnish surveillance and other records.

In addition, the Commission instituted contested administrative proceedings against Salvatore F. Sodano, the Amex's former chairman and chief executive officer, alleging that he failed to enforce compliance with federal securities laws and exchange rules by Amex members and persons associated with those members.

Linda Chatman Thomsen, Director of the Commission's Division of Enforcement, said, "Enforcing compliance with federal securities laws, and a self-regulatory organization's own rules, is a central function of a self-regulatory organization. Today's action against the Amex demonstrates that the Commission will be vigilant in making certain that SROs fulfill their regulatory responsibilities."

SEC Associate Director Scott W. Friestad said, "Senior management of a self-regulatory organization play a critical role in establishing a culture of compliance and are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the organization is meeting its regulatory objectives. Our action against Mr. Sodano alleges that he improperly abdicated his oversight responsibilities and ignored repeated red flags regarding the Amex's regulatory deficiencies."

In its order against the Amex, the Commission found that, from at least 1999, the Amex was on notice that its surveillance, investigatory, and enforcement programs were inadequate. The Amex previously had consented to the issuance of a Sept. 11, 2000, order that, in part, directed the Amex to enhance and improve its regulatory programs for surveillance, investigation, and enforcement of the options order handling rules. The Commission found that, notwithstanding the September 2000 order, the Amex's surveillance programs for options order handling remained inadequate to detect violations of firm quote, customer priority, limit order display, and trade reporting, and other rules. When the Amex's surveillance programs detected rule violations, the Amex failed to investigate violations properly, improperly excused violations, and failed to pursue adequately disciplinary actions for rule violations. The Commission also found that as late as June 2004, the Amex had similar deficiencies in its surveillance for equity order handling and floor broker violations. In addition to the deficiencies in the Amex's surveillance, investigatory, and enforcement programs, the Commission found that the Amex failed to keep and furnish certain records relating to its surveillance, investigatory, and enforcement activities and further furnished the Commission with inaccurate documents.

Pursuant to the order, the Commission censured the Amex and ordered it to cease and desist from violating Sections 17(a)(1) and 19(g)(1) of the Exchange Act and Exchange Act Rule 17a-1. The Commission further ordered the Amex to comply with undertakings (1) to file a rule proposal with the Commission to enhance its trading systems so that specialists systemically will be prevented from violating the Amex's customer priority rules; (2) to enhance the Amex's training programs so that floor members and members of the Amex's regulatory staff responsible for surveillance, investigation, and regulation will be required to receive annual training related to compliance with federal securities laws and Amex rules; and (3) to retain an auditor to conduct three biennial audits of the Amex's surveillance, examination, and disciplinary programs related to trading. Without admitting or denying the Commission's findings, the Amex consented to the issuance of the Commission's order.

In the separate, related proceeding against Sodano, the former chairman and CEO of the Amex, the Division of Enforcement alleged that the Amex's regulatory failures resulted in large part from Sodano's failures to make regulation an Amex priority, to pay adequate attention to regulation, to put in place an oversight structure to monitor compliance, to ensure that regulatory staff was properly trained, and to dedicate sufficient resources to regulation. These failures were particularly significant with respect to the Amex's options market because Sodano knew the Amex had been previously sanctioned by the Commission for its inadequate options regulation in the September 2000 order and that the Commission had ordered the Amex to enhance and improve its regulatory programs for surveillance, investigation, and enforcement of the options order handling rules. The proceedings instituted today against Sodano, pursuant to Section 19(h) of the Exchange Act, will determine whether Sodano failed, without reasonable justification or excuse, to enforce compliance with the federal securities laws, rules, and regulations, and Amex rules, by members of the Amex and persons associated with those members.

In a third, related proceeding, the Commission issued an order against Richard Robinson, a former Amex vice president responsible for overseeing the Amex's regulatory surveillance programs for the derivatives and options markets. The Commission found that Robinson was a cause of the Amex's violations by failing to oversee properly the Amex's surveillance program for derivatives and options, by failing to maintain properly Amex investigative files, and by signing and submitting an affirmation to the Commission on behalf of the Amex that contained inaccurate representations relating to the Amex's regulatory program. Without admitting or denying the Commission's findings, Robinson consented to the issuance of an order directing him to cease-and-desist from causing violation of Sections 17(a)(1) and 19(g)(1) of the Exchange Act and Exchange Act Rule 17a-1.

U.S. Army Recruits Dell for Servers, Storage and Services

The U.S. Army has selected Dell to provide servers, storage and networking hardware as well as installation and integration services for its Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – 2 Hardware (ITES -2H) contract.

The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity ITES-2H contract is a three-year agreement with two one-year extensions and a purchasing ceiling of $5 billion. Dell is one of six prime awardees for the contract.

This is the most recent example of Dell’s 15-year partnership with the Army. As announced in September, Dell was also chosen under the Army’s Desktop Mobile Computing (ADMC-2) contract to provide desktop and notebook computers, displays, printers and peripherals for three years.

“Dell has a long-standing relationship with the Army and a proven track record supporting its mission,” said Troy West, vice president, Dell Federal Business segment. “We appreciate the Army’s confidence in Dell, and we will work hard to support the Army’s efforts around the globe.”

Dell also strives to support the Army through sponsorship of two programs that assist deployed servicemen and their families that are left at home. Through Operation Homelink, Dell distributes computers to families of junior enlisted servicemen so that they can keep in touch during overseas deployments. Dell has donated hundreds of computers since the program started in 2004 at events at Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg.

Dell is also a founding member of the Army Spouse Employment Partnership program, created in 2003. Dell employs military spouses in technical support positions, allowing them the opportunity to work from home and stay with Dell through the frequent moves inherent in the military lifestyle. Dell’s participation in the Army Spouse Employment Partnership program was recognized by the Association of Defense Communities for assistance in building essential and sustainable partnerships in defense communities.

Dell supports its employees who are members of the National Guard and Reserve by allowing employees called to duty a military leave of absence and providing a compensation package for deployed employees to assist their families in a time of need. Dell also signed a statement of support for the Department of Defense’s Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) and has been given the Patriot Award from ESGR recognizing its support of Dell employees serving in the guard and reserves.

SAP Recommends Dividend Increase

The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board of SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) recommend that shareholders approve a dividend of €0.46 per ordinary share at this year’s Annual General Meeting of shareholders. This would represent an increase of 27 percent over the 2005 dividend. If the shareholders approve this recommendation the total amount distributed in dividends would be approximately €560 million. The dividend payment is in line with SAP’s targeted pay-out ratio of approximately 30 percent of the group’s net income.

The Annual General Meeting is scheduled for May 10, 2007 in Mannheim, Germany. The payment of the dividend is scheduled for or after May 11, 2007.

Note to holders of SAP ADRs (American Depositary Receipts): One SAP ADR (American Depositary Receipt) represents one SAP AG’s ordinary share. However, the final dividend is dependent on the Euro/US-Dollar exchange rate. SAP AG pays cash dividends in Euro, so the exchange rate fluctuations will also affect the US-Dollar amounts received by the holders of ADRs on the conversion into US-Dollars of cash dividends paid in Euro on the ordinary shares represented by the ADRs. The final dividend payment by SAP AG to the depositary bank is scheduled for May 11, 2007. The depositary bank will then convert the dividend payment from Euro into US-Dollar as promptly as practicable.

GE: GEnx Orders Top $10 Billion, Making it Fastest-Selling Big Engine in GE Aviation History

First Choice Airways has purchased an additional four Boeing 787 Dreamliners, powered by the fast-selling GEnx engine—taking total GEnx orders to 830 for 28 customers, with a list price value of more than $10 billion.

This most recent First Choice engine order is valued at more than $125 million. This is First Choice’s third order for GEnx-powered Boeing 787s, bringing its total order to 12 aircraft. First Choice Airways, a subsidiary of First Choice Holidays PLC, was the first GEnx customer. Aircraft deliveries to First Choice begin in 2009.

The GEnx is part of GE's "ecomagination" product portfolio—GE’s commitment to develop new, cost-effective technologies that enhance customers' environmental and operating performance. The GEnx’s composite and combustion technologies are unique to the commercial aviation industry.

“Having taken the decision to increase our commitment to long-haul destinations, we wanted to ensure we could do this in the most cost-effective and environmentally sound way, while offering our customers new destinations and even more comfortable travel," said Dermot Blastland, managing director of First Choice Mainstream Holidays, on selecting the GE-powered 787s.

““This decision demonstrates the confidence First Choice has in the engine-aircraft combination,” said Tom Brisken, general manager of the GEnx program. “First Choice was our first GEnx customer, and the airline has continued to build upon its original 787 fleet.”

Since February, the GEnx has been flight-testing on GE's 747 flying testbed. GEnx development engines have accumulated more than 1,000 hours of testing in ground tests since March 2006. Engine certification is scheduled for later this year.

Based on the highly successful GE90 architecture, the GEnx engine is one of the quietest, most fuel-efficient jet engines ever. It will succeed GE's CF6 family, the best-selling engine on wide-body aircraft. The GEnx will provide significantly better specific fuel consumption and payload performance than CF6 engines.

The GEnx engine, which will power both the 787 and the 747-8, is the world's only jet engine with both a front fan case and fan blades made of composites, which provide for greater engine durability, weight reduction and lower operating costs. The fan blades will utilize GE90 composite technology that has performed extremely well, with no routine on-wing maintenance required and no in-service issues for more than a decade.

GE Aviation, an operating unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is one of the world's leading manufacturers of jet engines for civil and military aircraft. GE Aviation’s engine backlog by the end of 2006 reached $14.2 billion, compared to $9.4 billion by the end of 2005. GE also is a world-leading provider of maintenance and support services for jet engines. Visit us at www.ge.com/aviation.

HPQ: HP to Acquire Tabblo, Aims to Make Printing from Web Easier

HP today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tabblo Inc., a privately-held developer of web-based software located in Cambridge, Mass.

HP plans to leverage Tabblo’s technologies to make printing from the web easier and more convenient than it is today. Tabblo’s technology allows people to simply and efficiently arrange and print text, graphics and photos from the web. This is made possible by Tabblo’s custom template engine, using an AJAX-enriched interface.

HP plans to make this simple-to-use web-printing experience broadly available to people by working with other companies to integrate the technology into their websites. Together, HP and its partner companies will provide customers with a vastly improved web-based printing experience to meet the ever-growing need for simplified Internet-based printing.

“HP’s goal is to make printing content from the web the easiest and best experience possible for people – whether they are printing a simple map or a book of their favorite blogs,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “By acquiring Tabblo’s technology and making it available to companies that host popular websites, HP will be firmly on the path to becoming the print engine of the web.”

The acquisition is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed within the next few weeks. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

INTC: Intel Declares Regular Cash Dividend

Intel Corporation's board of directors has declared an 11.25 cents per share quarterly dividend on the company's common stock. The dividend is payable on June 1, 2007 to stockholders of record on May 7, 2007.

RNOW: Internet Yellow Pages Provider YP Corp Uses RightNow to Deliver Exceptional Customer Experiences While Reducing Costs

RightNow(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: RNOW) today announced that Internet Yellow Pages leader YP Corp. is using RightNow’s complete on-demand customer service, sales, and marketing solutions suite to support its growth strategy and reduce overhead costs.

YP Corp. selected RightNow after an extensive evaluation of available customer relationship management solutions. The company decided to adopt RightNow as its strategic technology for managing customer interactions, based on comprehensive functionality, ease of use, and adaptability to potential changes in the nature and scale of YP’s business. RightNow’s on-demand delivery model was also a critical consideration.

“At this significant point in our company’s evolution, it was essential for us to lay a strong foundation for future growth and profitability,” John Raven, YP Corp.’s chief operating officer, said. “The substantial investment we’ve made in RightNow is providing the technology we need to extend our reach and rigorously maintain our operating efficiency moving forward.”

About YP Corp.
YP Corp. is America’s Local Online Yellow Pages™ and offers businesses a simple and affordable way of creating a web presence and marketing their products and services to local audiences online. The Company offers an Internet Advertising Package which provides advertisers preferred placement in yellow page search results and their own Mini Webpage ™ where they can provide potential customers with details about their products and services. YP Corp.’s mission is to be the preferred internet local Yellow Pages by offering advertising customers a superior marketing platform to grow their businesses and to provide them with a caliber of service unsurpassed in the industry.



About RightNow Technologies
RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) delivers the high-impact technology solutions and services organizations need to cost-efficiently deliver a consistently superior customer experience across their frontline service, sales and marketing touch-points. Approximately 1,800 corporations and government agencies worldwide depend on RightNow to achieve their strategic objectives and better meet the needs of those they serve. RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. For more information, please visit www.rightnow.com

CSCO: Cisco Completes Acquisition of Reactivity

Cisco Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced it has completed the acquisition of privately-held Reactivity, Inc., of Redwood City, California. Reactivity is a leading XML (eXtensible Markup Language) gateway provider for organizations ranging from commercial enterprises to the Global 500.

Customers and major software providers are evolving their enterprise software architectures from a client-server paradigm to a service-oriented architecture. In addition, customers are deploying a variety of Web 2.0 capabilities that are collectively transforming the World Wide Web from a collection of relatively static web sites to a services rich computing platform.

The Reactivity acquisition demonstrates Cisco's commitment to the expanding Application Networking Services (ANS) Advanced Technology segment, which is an important part of Cisco's Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) strategy and vision. Reactivity complements and extends the capability of Cisco's ANS portfolio for these emerging application architectures.

With the close of the transaction, the Reactivity team and product portfolio are now integrated into the Cisco's Datacenter Switching and Security Technology Group (DSSTG), reporting into Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President.

New IBM Blade Computers Speed Business Data up to Ten Times Faster

IBM today introduced powerful new blade computing systems that enable data to travel up to 10 times faster than previously possible across corporate networks.
The revolutionary new high-performance systems, called IBM BladeCenter H, increase the bandwidth of tiny blade computers, providing businesses up to 10 times the capacity to move data across their networks. The processing breakthrough, made possible by IBM Research, increases the internal capability of the new system by delivering more than 40 Gigabits (Gb) of I/O bandwidth to every blade server.



A blade is a thin computer system that can be pulled in and out of a specially designed chassis, similar to placing books into a shelf. The IBM chassis housing the blades is known as BladeCenter. IBM has the highest blade density of any major computer vendor, fitting 14 fully functioning blades in a chassis.


The BladeCenter H systems introduced today provide a new way to deliver blade technology, by collapsing servers, storage devices, networking infrastructure and security appliances into a single location in the datacenter. They can be used by businesses to run high-performance analytics software and data warehousing applications in industries including finance, retail, healthcare, life sciences and telecommunications.


New IBM blades and switches announced today include:

• A nine-core IBM Cell blade -- the first Cell-based product from IBM.  Designed for businesses that need the breakthrough capabilities of the IBM Cell BE processor to tackle tasks involving compute-intensive workloads and broadband media applications, the Cell blade is the first multi-core blade computer.

• A dual-core POWER processor-based BladeCenter JS21 -- the first blade with built-in virtualization capabilities.The JS21 blade offers the industry's top price-performance for companies specializing in bioinformatics, grid computing, retail, manufacturing, and petroleum research. In independent testing, it surpasses competitive systems from HP and others on key benchmarks including Linpack, Fasta, SPECint rate2000 and SPECfp rate2000.

• An ultra low power Intel-based BladeCenter HS20 -- a dual-core blade  with the industry's best performance per watt, the HS20 helps customers control the cost of power and cooling in their datacenter.

• The Cisco InfiniBand Switch Module -- a 4X InfiniBand switch from  Cisco and IBM that provides high-speed interconnect capability. The switch module, specifically designed for the BladeCenter H, is four times faster than previous generations.

The new BladeCenter H systems provide crucial investment protection for IBM customers. They are compatible with existing BladeCenter systems and IBM's current blades and switches can be deployed in the new BladeCenter H system.   


"With the introduction of the BladeCenter H, IBM has delivered unprecedented system innovation to help clients simplify and improve overcrowded datacenters," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "IBM and the growing BladeCenter ecosystem of partners are producing high performance systems that enable clients to tackle big computing challenges in a cost effective and more efficient manner."



FirstMerit Bank, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, serves more than 500,000 household and business customers and processes more than 500 Gigabytes of data each month on their IBM BladeCenter systems, the equivalent of nearly one-half million accounting books.


“BladeCenter is at the core of our data center, allowing us to scale up our computing infrastructure to meet our rapidly growing business demands, which is growing at a rate nearly 20 percent per year,” said Dave Samic, senior network analyst, FirstMerit Bank. “BladeCenter and IBM storage virtualization technology have resulted in more than $300,000 in technology and management cost savings through consolidation of physical boxes, increased utilization of system assets and easier management. We're looking forward to implementing some of these new innovative technologies, especially the new ultra low-voltage blade that will provide energy and cost-savings to us.”



IBM's BladeCenter is the world's most popular blade computing system, with more than forty percent share of the market and revenue growth of 2,600 percent in less than three years.* Since its introduction in 2002, IBM has installed more than 350,000 blades for customers, more than any other computer maker.



Expansion of Blade.org

More than forty technology companies, including IBM and Intel, today announced the formation of Blade.org, with new members, bylaws and workgroups. Blade.org is a collaborative organization focused on facilitating the utilization of blade technology by customers, partners and solution providers.



In July, IBM announced the intent to form Blade.org together with Intel and other industry leaders. New members announced today include Altiris, AMD, Avnet, BladeFusion, Broadcom, Brocade, CGAtlantic, Citrix Systems, Clovis Solutions, Devon IT, Emulex, Force10 Networks, Fulcrum Microsystems, HCL Technologies, IBM, Intel, iVivity, Mazu Networks, Myricom, NetApp, NetEffect, Neoware, Nortel, Novell, OpenService, PathScale, QLogic, Qumranet, Red Hat, Sensory Networks, Server Engines, Stargen, Symantec, Teak Technologies, Tehuti Networks, Universal Network Machines, Universal Scientific Industrial, Virtual Iron, VMware, Voltaire, Wyse Technology and Zeus Technology.



New product and solution offerings have been created from collaboration among Blade.org partners, including the IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure, with its initial offering based on BladeCenter, VMware, and Citrix. Companies including Emulex, Myricom, Server Engines and Voltaire are announcing products today supporting BladeCenter H.



New BladeCenter H Management Tools



IBM today announced new BladeCenter H management tools including:

• Autonomic management module -- a new Advanced Management Module that manages blades at the chassis level, automating blade management functions previously done manually. The module integrates with IBM Director and Tivoli.
  
• Power Executive -- a compelling new power management suite allows customers to evaluate their exact datacenter power requirements and utilize blade power and cooling technologies to enable peak utilization.
  
• Extended Integration with IBM System i5 -- An industry-standard iSCSI connection to BladeCenter will enable customers to exploit System i5 virtual storage, networking, and tape resources to help simplify the operations of their Windows Server System infrastructure.
  
• Retail store integration -- OS 4690 support allows the IBM Retail    Store Systems controller function to be run on BladeCenter H.
  

Pricing and availability

BladeCenter H and the Advanced Management Module, which comes standard with each IBM BladeCenter, will be available in March at a starting price of $3,849. The BladeCenter JS21 blade will be available in March at a starting price of $2,499. The new ultra low power, dual-core Intel Xeon-based BladeCenter HS20 will be available in April at a starting price of $1,749.



The Cisco InfiniBand Switch will be available in the second quarter of 2006. Integration of BladeCenter and System i5 is planned to be available for mid-2006. The IBM Cell BE-based blade is planned to be available in the third quarter of 2006.



More information about these new products is available at www.ibm.com/bladecenter.