In-Depth

Inside IBM

• 08/01/2000

IBM is the storage industry’s services revenue leader in the Storage Area Network (SAN) and storage services marketplace, according to an industry analysis by IDC.

IBM generated more than $3.6 billion in services revenue in 1999, while HP was second with $1 billion, followed by Compaq, $825 million; StorageTek, $719 million; EMC, $350 million; and Sun, $150 million.

The IDC report, "Storage Services: An Analysis of Market Opportunities and the Competitive Landscape," identifies SANs as a key driver in the storage services market, in which storage consulting is predicted to grow at a 1999-2003 annual growth rate of 32.6 percent, compared with the overall market rate of 19 percent. The IDC report cites IBM’s new "SAN focus," which "has created a new opportunity for providing consulting, implementation and management services pertaining to storage and has raised the visibility of these services overall."

IBM holds the top spot in the recently released TOP500 List of Supercompu-ters. Published by researchers at the University of Tennessee and the University of Mannheim in Germany, the TOP500 List tracks the use of supercomputers by universities, government labs and businesses. According to the list, IBM’s RS/6000 SP ranks as the world’s most prevalent computer, with more than 144 systems installed. Sun, ranked second on the list, has 121 installations.

The latest TOP500 List continues to underscore the emerging number of supercomputers used in business applications. For the first time in the history of the List, over half of the systems on the TOP500 – 260 – are used for business applications. Of the elite top ten business supercomputers in the world, eight are IBM RS/6000 SPs.

The entire TOP500 list can be viewed at www.top500.org.

Fifty of IBM’s Business Partner Storage Area Network (SAN) Solution Centers are opening for e-business, as part of IBM’s $400 million initiative to harness the explosive growth of data. The centers expand IBM’s network of locally available SAN expertise and complement IBM SAN testing facilities in the United States, Germany, France and Japan.

The Solution Centers, the first of more than 70 centers planned in 20 countries around the world, help customers deploy SAN solutions by providing a testing facility where customers can use real data to realize the benefits of linking storage products into networks. The centers offer other SAN services that include testing, designing, education and training.

For a listing of the 43 IBM Business Partner SAN Solution Centers, visit www.ibm.com/SAN.

IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite, Pro Edition for AS/400, Version 4.1, allows companies to increase revenue through targeted customer loyalty and relationship marketing programs, including personalization, merchandising, business analysis and reporting, order management, auctions and integration with existing systems and processes.

IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite uses Blaze Advisor technology, which provides a rules-based personalization framework to create an electronic catalog for businesses based on specific customer demographics.

IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite, Pro Edition (formerly Net.Commerce Pro) has a tier-based price structure starting at $15,000.

IBM developerWorks unveiled the Components Zone, the newest addition of technologies covered by the developerWorks site.

The developerWorks Components Zone addresses the need to shorten software development cycle times and increase application flexibility. The new developerWorks zone will help application developers to understand and apply pre-built objects in their development efforts, and will take the complexity and mystery out of this relatively new practice.

The new developerWorks zone focuses on open standards and cross-platform technologies, and provides a rich menu of technical articles, tools, interviews with industry experts, information on numerous events and forums, and links to other component resource sites.

IBM announced an initiative to enhance its WebSphere software platform with component technologies designed to speed the development of e-business applications.

The initiative includes new tools and Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) components designed to improve developer productivity, speed product cycles and simplify the process of getting e-business applications to market.

The WebSphere Business Components, which will begin to ship this year, build on IBM’s experience in component technologies, including more than 1,000 Java components that are used by independent software vendors, as well as corporate developers.

A number of Business Components can be downloaded from alphaWorks (www. alphaWorks.ibm.com). Developers who download this "alpha code" are encouraged to share their feedback with IBM before the technologies are integrated into products.

IBM has introduced the world’s fastest 6-way Web server, the rack-mounted RS/6000 H80, using copper microprocessors to speed e-business on the Web.

In independent testing on the SPEC Web99 benchmark, a 6-way RS/6000 H80, running Zeus Web server software, supported 2,200 simultaneous connections, 22 percent better than the 1,800 connections handled by the nearest competitor.

Designed to predict real-world Web server performance, SPEC Web99 simulates a server that supports multiple Web home pages with rotating advertisements, customized page creation, user registration and other dynamic operations.