COMMON welcomes IBM's announcement of the new generation of Power Systems technology, POWER7. This new line of Power Systems technology is not only the highest performing, but is the first to qualify for an Energy Star rating. 

The COMMON community recognizes great promise in this new development. "The further enhancing and upgrading of the Power Systems line exemplifies IBM's commitment to their customers' needs and requirements. It is very impressive that IBM has been able to create an energy efficient system, in this time where the public is understandably concerned with being 'green'," said Wayne Madden, COMMON president. 

The coming release, scheduled for the first half of 2010, will feature:

• Power 750 - a midrange business server
• Power 755 - an HPC model server for scientific applications
• Power 770 - a modular enterprise server
• Power 780 - a new category of scalable high end servers

COMMON's 2010 Annual Meeting and Exposition will celebrate the user group's 50^th anniversary and provide a unique forum for attendees to see first-hand the new POWER7 line, as well as speak one-on-one with the IBM experts on the technology.  It is likely that POWER7 will be a distinct point of interest at the meeting this year. 

The 50^th anniversary meeting has been scheduled for May 2–6, 2010 in Orlando, Florida, and will feature COMMON's highly renowned educational and networking opportunities at the world's premier forum for the Power Systems community. 

COMMON is the world's largest users group of midrange IBM and IBM-compatible technology. The organization comprises more than 4,000 individual and corporate members. They represent more than 22,000 IT professionals involved with the IBM i5/OS, OS/400 and related solutions. For more information about COMMON, visit www.common.org.