Will IBM 'Steal More Sun' With New POWER7's?Will IBM 'Steal More Sun' With New POWER7's?

IBM channel partners had something else to cheer about yesterday when the vendor unveiled the latest systems in its POWER7 series. Executives say the new technology is a culmination of IBM's year-long rollout of workload-optimized systems that will help customers reduce IT administration costs while deploying more powerful applications.The unveiling follows on the heels of IBM's announcement that it continues to steal Unix market share from the likes of Oracle-Sun and HP with its "Migration Factory" campaign. Since the program's inception in 2006, IBM has completed 2,600 migrations, more than 800 as of June this year.

The IBM Power 795 platform consists of four entry-level, POWER7 processor-based servers and a workload-optimized Smart Analytics System that IBM says will help businesses quickly "draw insights from vast amounts of data to anticipate emerging business trends, capture new opportunities, and avoid risks."

The rollout is expected to put even more power behind IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, through which channel partners worldwide have been helping customers in every vertical -- from finance and agriculture to retail and biotechnology -- to work smarter and more efficiently.

To date, midsize companies have led the Smarter Planet charge. A few noteworthy examples: Sun World, a produce grower in California, has increased its profits and streamlined its operations by harnessing an analytics system to measure crop yields, farm labor costs, water usage, growing patterns, and other aspects of its business. The city of Stockholm has reduced traffic by 20% and slashed emissions by 12% by implementing a dynamic toll system. And Illumination Entertainment dramatically slashed production time and money spent on big-screen hit "Despicable Me" by using scalable, energy-efficient computer systems.

"The POWER7 adds four times the computing power of the POWER6, but with the same energy envelope and physical footprint," says Steve Sibley, program director for the Power System platform at IBM. "We've been very successful with the POWER7 platform so far, enjoying double-digit growth with both our midrange and blade systems. Our partners are really excited about this rollout. These are powerful, scalable, affordable systems they can introduce to their smaller clients."