Last week, IBM unveiled sweeping changes designed to better focus the company on the client segments that fuel the systems marketplace. As part of this, IBM created a new enterprise-focused Power Systems business unit to better address the unique focus and specific demands of enterprise clients.

IBM now has just previewed a major new release of its flagship integrated operating system, i5/OS, expected in 2008. i5/OS Version 6 will feature significant new security, Web services, and virtualization capabilities to help businesses get the most out of their IT operations. IBM also announced the first System i offering to feature POWER6, the fastest microprocessor ever built.

"We're announcing the first product from IBM's new Power Systems business unit," said an IBM spokesperson. "Nearly half of IBM's systems clients today have i5/OS installed in their enterprise. IBM will continue to build on the integrated, easy-to-use value proposition of i5/OS so clients can rely on the operating system for their most mission critical business solutions."

The new, enterprise-focused Power Systems business unit announced July 19 includes both System p and high-end System i products for enterprise clients and will allow IBM to better address the unique focus and specific demands of these customers. The new unit demonstrates IBM's commitment to delivering leadership POWER systems as well as its ongoing investment to advance the integration and ease of use of i5/OS.

New i5/OS V6R1 features that help simplify IT operations include:

• An encryption feature to help companies further protect vital data by encrypting data that is held on disk devices and backed up to tape.
• Virtualization support that allows one i5/OS partition to host storage for another i5/OS partition. This will eliminate the requirement for separate partitions to maintain their own, individual hardware, making it much easier for clients to flexibly test and deploy new i5/OS applications.
• Utilities for simpler deployment and better integration with Web services as well as an integrated Web application server to simplify the deployment of Java applications with minimal system resources and administration.

Further, as part of the Power Systems division, System i will exploit IBM's investments across its Systems and Technology Group portfolio. For example, i5/OS V6R1 will take advantage of IBM Systems Directorùextending the current management capabilities of System i to better support a mixed environment that includes other operating systems like UNIX and Windowsùand enhanced integration and performance with IBM System Storage.

Thanks to IBM's investments to bring new applications to the System i platform, customers have a broad portfolio of thousands of new open source applications and development options they can run with i5/OS. For example, SugarCRM announced today that it will make its leading commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software available for i5/OS.

IBM Brings World's Fastest Chip to System i

IBM also unveiled the new System i 570 featuring POWER6, the fastest microprocessor ever built. This powerful, versatile system will help medium and large enterprises achieve new levels of operational efficiency with up to twice the application performance and modular options up to 16-way configurations.

The i 570 can be customized to run multiple transactional, collaborative and Web applications simultaneously in up to 160 separate "virtual" server partitions that share computing and operations resources on a single system. The new POWER6 i 570 has a flexible structure with additional capacity on demand resources to make more stand-by power available and enable the system to easily grow with a clients' business.

With the i570, IBM will introduce a new, flexible i5/OS Edition pricing structure to better enable clients to pay for the software, middleware and features they use.

Pricing and Availability

The System i570 with POWER6 processors will be available with i5/OS V5R4 in September starting at $165,000. i5/OS V6R1 is expected to be available in 2008.

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