IBM officially introduced its heavily anticipated Power5 server line on Monday.
As previously reported, the servers are the first generation of boxes using IBM's new Power5 processor, a 64-bit chip meant to compete with high-end technology from Intel, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. The introduction of the servers is believed to be the last step in IBM's convergence of its two server product lines, the iSeries and pSeries, which use identical hardware and are differentiated only by their operating system and other software. The company said the Power5 servers will officially go on sale June 11 and will be available in two eServer models, the i5 520, with one or two processors, and the i5 570, with one to four processors. An entry-level version of the i5 520 model will cost $9,995. Meanwhile, an i5 570 starts at $85,200.
The servers, which run on the latest version of IBM's OS/400 operating system known as i5/OS, are aimed at small and midsize businesses. The servers are designed to appeal to customers who want systems with a good deal of software built in, including IBM's WebSphere and DB2 and third-party packages from companies such as SAP. The introduction of the two models marks the first step in IBM's "Squadron" server strategy. Later models are expected to feature as many as 64 processors, with each processor able to execute simultaneously two instruction sequences. During the third quarter, IBM is expected to introduce a midrange server, the i5 550, with up to four processors.
News source: C|net
