In-Depth

Inside IBM

• 04/01/2000

IBM’s ThinkPad notebook, PC 300 desktop and IntelliStation professional workstation series are now preloaded with Windows 2000, and offer security features that complement those found in Microsoft’s upcoming operating system. Several of the desktop models preloaded with Windows 2000 – including the IBM PC 300PL, IBM IntelliStation E Pro and the IBM IntelliStation M Pro – come standard with the embedded security chip. For more information about IBM’s Windows 2000 initiatives, visit www.ibm.com/Windows2000.

IBM has expanded the availability of its end-to-end print management software, Infoprint Manager, to support Windows environments. Infoprint Manager is the first solution for Windows NT and Windows 2000 that enables production printing at speeds over 1,000 pages per minute. Infoprint Manager for Windows supports the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) standard, which allows mobile users to print to any Infoprint Manager-supported printer anywhere in the world, via a URL. With this solution, the print server supports IPP, which automatically makes every printer supported by Infoprint Manager for Windows within an enterprise IPP-enabled. For more information, visit www.ibm.com/printers.

In a videotaped message shown to more than 4,000 IBM partners at the vendor’s annual PartnerWorld conference, IBM Chairman and CEO Louis Gerstner said that too often, IBM and its partners are missing small business opportunities in e-business. However, Gerstner also said e-business transactions are forcing quick changes in the way companies partner and do business themselves.

"There has never been a better time to be in this industry," Gerstner said. "For the companies that lead this revolution, the opportunity is going to be explosive."

Gerstner’s remarks were made on the same morning that research data was released, showing major IBM market share losses in the PC space during 1999. IBM recently posted a 1999 financial report that showed its hardware business shrunk by $1 billion in revenue in 1999, to less than $11 billion in sales.

The company will continue to invest in partners that would focus on IBM’s success as much as theirs, and Gerstner encouraged partners to "kick some butt in the marketplace."

SAS Institute and IBM have joined to form a consulting practice and further develop e-business intelligence solutions that integrate IBM’s DB2 database product family and SAS software. The three-year agreement between IBM and SAS Institute and their joint development efforts will create a consulting practice in IBM Global Services, specializing in SAS solutions. These consultants will work with joint customers to integrate the decision support capabilities of SAS solutions with existing transaction systems and other IBM e-business applications.

There will also be closer integration of SAS solutions and DB2 Universal Database to further enhance performance on all IBM server platforms, including Netfinity, AS/400, RS/6000, NUMA-Q and S/390.

In conjunction with Caldera Systems, IBM is offering its Application Development Kit as a free development base for e-business applications. The free kit includes support and marketing incentives for commercial software developers, as well. Core components of the Application Developer Kit are the DB2 Universal Database, WebSphere, Lotus Domino, the Java Edition of the IBM Developer Kit, and VisualAge for Java. It is supported on both Caldera’s OpenLinux and Red Hat Linux operating systems.

Caldera will offer the kit with some versions of their OpenLinux operating system to ISVs during a 120-day pilot development program. Qualified applications that are ported during the pilot program will be featured on the IBM Linux home page, developerWorks and the Global Solutions Directory. To qualify, the submission’s application infrastructure must use at least two IBM software technologies: DB2 Universal Database, Lotus Domino, WebSphere Application Server or IBM’s Java technology.

To register for the kit, visit Caldera Systems at www.calderasystems.com or visit IBM at www.ibm.com/linux.

IBM will offer new disk storage systems to other computer makers to use in their products. The new products are the first use of technology from data storage technology developer Mylex Corp., which IBM acquired in September 1999.

The new line of Windows NT and UNIX storage server systems and network attached storage are part of an effort to compete in the fast-growing market of providing disk storage systems to computer makers.

That market is currently valued at $1.2 billion, according to International Data Corp. The total storage market under all operating systems is seen as growing to $47 billion by 2003.

The first product, the IBM ProFibre Storage Array, attaches to a server running the Windows NT or UNIX operating systems. The system, which is made up of IBM hard disk drives, Mylex redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) controllers, and an IBM enclosure, is scalable from 9 gigabytes to 2.8 terabytes, or enough to store the contents of a large library.

IBM and Akamai Technologies Inc. have entered a strategic agreement in which IBM will use Akamai’s technology to build a set of systems integration and application development services to speed and more smoothly handle unpredictable demands on Web sites.

According to the agreement, Akamai will purchase and deploy IBM Netfinity enterprise-class servers, running the Linux operating system. As Akamai expands its network’s reach, IBM will be Akamai’s primary supplier of servers. IBM is also beginning implementation of Akamai’s FreeFlow service in customer sites and will use FreeFlow on its own site at www.ibm.com.