Vendor Spotlight:

LINUX SWEEPS IBM CUSTOMERS

IBM at LinuxWorld San Francisco announced six new customers from various industries that are moving to Linux, marking the astounding growth in demand for Linux, from the smallest to the largest customers.

From small and mid-sized business (SMB) customers Netflix and Marinalife to enterprise customers Lucent and NYFIX, companies in every industry and throughout the world are choosing Linux and IBM to save costs, consolidate workloads and integrate their e-business operating environments.

In response to the overwhelming customer demand, IBM is expanding its Linux practice in three key areas - the expanded IBM Global Services (IGS) Linux practice, SMB solutions testing in IBM Linux competency centers and Business Partner incentive programs. IBM's industry-leading Linux consultancy practice has expanded to meet customer demand for Linux-related services. More than 3000 employees in IGS now have certified skills in open source technologies, a ten fold increase since 2001.

"In a tough economy, customers need to do more with less," said Jim Stallings, general manager, Linux, IBM. "As customers increasingly move from proprietary solutions, such as those from Sun, HP and Oracle, IBM will continue to drive Linux adoption by expanding our Linux practices and offering customers and partners the tools they need to integrate their e-business operating environments while realizing improved performance and better return on investment."

SMBs Embrace Linux

Netflix: Netflix, Inc., a medium-size business customer, is the number one online movie rental service, providing DVD movie rentals to more than one million customers each month. IGS Linux experts helped Netflix move from Sun to IBM hardware and software running Linux to save costs and increase mission critical web performance for the Netflix repository of 16,000+ DVD titles and CineMatch search and queing. IGS Linux Practice worked closely with Netflix to architect and migrate NetFlix's web edge servers from Solaris to Linux on several dozen IBM eServer xSeries servers. They are also working with Netflix to improve web site performance, and best practices to manage the infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Netflix has also implemented the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server Model 800 to satisfy its large-scale online storage requirements.

Netflix chose IBM because of its expertise in Linux, depth of knowledge and resources across hardware, software and services. The Netflix Linux solution has afforded the company a successful migration from Solaris to Linux on eServer x335 systems allowing the company to increase its web performance at a fraction of what they would continue to spend with the Sun Solaris solution. For the next phase of the implementation, Netflix will use IBM's Lotus Domino Web Access software, giving customers Web-based access to e-mail, calendaring, scheduling and instant messaging capability. Netflix will also use IBM WebSphere Portal software for their new employee based communication intranet, as well as an extranet for suppliers providing the company's extensive inventory of DVD movies.

Marinalife: For Marinalife, using Linux has been smooth sailing. The small business chose IBM and Business Partner, KeyLink Systems over Oracle and Microsoft solutions to create an online reservation system that allows recreational boaters to reserve a dock in more than 12,000 marinas throughout the United States. The web-based reservation system is replacing the time consuming process of making phone reservations for boat slips, making it faster for boaters to make a reservation, while saving marina operators time and money.

Marinalife is using a hosted, Linux-based solution from IBM that could easily scale to handle 75,000 reservation records, 10,000 marina records and 10,000 user records. The solution runs on IBM DB2 Universal Database and IBM eServer xSeries servers, providing a highly reliable online system that can handle reservations around the clock.

Enterprise Customers Embrace Linux

NYFIX, Inc.: NYFIX has selected IBM eServer BladeCenter as the next generation of server to power its online electronic-trading systems network. NYFIX operates the industry's largest Financial Information eXchange (FIX) order- routing network. This network is used by brokerage firms and other financial institutions to communicate trade data, such as who is buying or selling shares of a particular security, equity or stock. The NYFIX network processes hundreds of millions of shares of U.S. equity securities on a daily basis. The IBM eServer BladeCenter servers running Red Hat Linux will provide NYFIX with twice the performance of their existing Sun and HP servers while saving the overhead costs associated with operating systems and extra cabling that those systems required.

Credit Agricole Indosuez: Credit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), a corporate and investment bank headquartered in Paris, France, moved from Sun to IBM and Linux for faster, more robust, less expensive servers to support mission- critical calculations for its equities trading and capital market lines of business. The company decided to replace its existing Sun servers with 12 IBM eServer xSeries 330 systems running Linux. CAI found that the IBM solution costs half as much in hardware and maintenance as the previous Sun solution had, and delivered eight times the performance. This dramatically lowered the bank's operating costs and allowed it to perform financial risk calculations much faster, increasing its competitiveness.

Softbank Uway: Softbank Uway, a leading company in Seoul, Korea, focusing on online university applications is replacing 45 database and web servers from HP and Sun with IBM's latest mainframe, the IBM eServer z990, running Linux. In switching to the IBM eServer z990 from its current HP and Sun servers, Softbank Uway plans to increase the stability of its online operations such as university applications, graduate school applications, qualification and IT certification operations, and employment applications. Softbank Uway has also chosen the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server Model 800 and IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3590 for data storage consolidation and back-up.

When completed, the new Softbank Uway system running Linux will contribute to a more stable environment for university admission-related works which require especially high system stability and availability. By integrating the many physically dispersed database and web server systems to one server, Softbank Uway will save costs, consolidate workloads and simplify its infrastructure.

Expanded IBM Linux Practices and Customer Programs

IBM Global Services Linux practice: IBM announced its industry-leading Linux consultancy practice has expanded to meet customer demand for Linux-related services. More than 3000 employees in IGS now have skills in open source technologies, a ten fold increase since 2001.

IBM Linux consultants combine in-depth technical expertise with deep business knowledge, enabling secure and seamless migrations to open source environments. Migration know-how and management is a natural extension of IGS competency in managing heterogeneous environments. IGS can develop an Open Source strategy for customers and can help them re-engineer their internal processes to leverage Open Source technology.

IBM Global Services offers the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of Linux consultative and support offerings, from planning and design, to implementation and technical support. IBM consultants skilled in Linux are available worldwide to help customers design, build, enhance and operate their Linux solutions.

SMB Solutions Testing for Linux Competency Centers: To support overwhelming interest from small and medium business customers, IBM is offering SMBs expanded access to its Linux Centers of Competence. The IBM Linux Solutions Express Center in the Beaverton, Oregon Linux Competency Center will provide unprecedented access to SMBs. The IBM center gives customers the opportunity to see how their solutions perform on Linux. Consistent with IBM's Express solutions portfolio of products and services specifically designed for SMB customers, the company has designed the IBM Linux Solutions Express Center to specifically simulate SMB customers infrastructure environment. During the simulation customers can see the maturity, high availability and scalability of Linux based solutions.

Business Partner Incentive Program: IBM is introducing a new incentive for Business Partners called "Double Your Discount with Linux". The incentive is part of the Value Advantage Plus Initiative that helps Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Solution Providers create Linux-based solutions for medium-size businesses using IBM's leading software. IBM delivers more than 200 software products that run on Linux acrosss its WebSphere, DB2, Lotus, Tivoli and Rational products lines, along with the new Express offerings that are designed to meet the needs of medium-size businesses.

Participants in the program will be eligible for up to a 60 percent discount on IBM software, doubling the existing incentive. The program gives ISVs and solution providers the funding, tools, Linux marketing programs and sales collaterial they need to quickly add Linux-based solutions to their portfolio of offerings for smaller businesses. In today's economic climate, IBM is helping ISVs and solution providers target a growing segment of the mid-market space and drive Linux solution revenue. The program is designed to help a wide range of ISVs and solution providers that currently resell software from IBM, as well as encourage partners that resell software for other companies like Microsoft, Oracle, BEA, Computer Associates, Veritas and UNIX-ware resellers to join IBM's PartnerWorld for Software program and take advantage of the "Double Your Discount with Linux" incentive.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM and Linux, visit http://www.ibm.com/linux.