Upgrade by Claudia Sonea

Have you heard about the latest thing from IBM? They are set to launch on Tuesday a more energy-efficient machine suitable to compete with high-end computers from rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O) that it is in fact an update of its powerful mainframe computer. You probably remember that the last update took place in 2005 and this new one although features an all-in-one computing framework for processing volumes of data for customers such as banks, insurers and retailers like all other older models, it is how International Business Machines Corp recounts more power-efficient and secure, dealing two main concerns as data-center energy costs soar and security threats mount. The new machine is called System z10 and starts at just under $1 million. What will you get? A 50 percent faster machine than the predecessors, the z9, up to 70 percent more computing capacity and according to IBM a more energy efficient computer. The z10 machines have the computing power of 1,500 standard business server computers, but are smaller and 85 percent more energy-efficient than such a server cluster. IBM's core product and a long a reliable source of revenue was from software and services required to run them, but now they are focusing on mainframes as the company moves to higher-profit technology services and software. The company expects a lot from the new mainframes, especially due to late losses they had fourth quarter: mainframe revenue fell 15 percent (customers waited for the new model before upgrading), from hardware fell 3 percent to $21.3 billion, accounting for 22 percent of IBM's total revenue of $98.8 billion, Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said on a conference call with analysts in January. HP, Dell Inc (DELL.O) and Sun Micro represents real competition with less expensive server computers, whose top-line server computers cost more than $250,000 and perform many of the same functions as IBM's mainframes. But David Gelardi, vice president of industry solutions for IBM's systems and technology group, said in an interview that even though it is more expensive, it pays off and will definitely be a product to be proud about. What can I say more? Give it a go!

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080226/tc_nm/ibm_mainframe_dc;_ylt=Ahg6hcKNbE5jjgAfko3d.vGs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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