Proteome Systems One of IBM's First Blade Server Customers

ARMONK, N.Y. -- Feb. 12, 2003 -- IBM today announced that it has reached a new milestone in its blade server sales with the receipt of the 5,000th IBM eServer BladeCenter order, two and a half months after introducing the
product.

IBM was the first major server vendor to ship Intel® Xeon(TM) processors based blades with this powerful processor for enterprise customers.

"We expect blade demand to explode in 2003. The overwhelming reception to this new form factor surpasses anything we have seen in the industry standard server marketplace at our company," said Jeff Benck, Director,
eServer Product Offerings, IBM. "Today, IBM is delivering a comprehensive blade offering including server, storage and networking technologies for customers who want to realize maximize TCO savings in their datacenters."

Some of the first IBM eServer BladeCenter customers include Baycorp Advantage, Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG), Proteome Systems, Virtual Offis and Washington University. In the United States, The Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University in St. Louis has purchased IBM blade servers to help accelerate with research and analysis of large scale genomic data.

"IBM's BladeCenter running Linux will help us accelerate genomic data acquisition and analysis. We were needing a system which gives us more power, greater compute density and higher availability than anyone else
today. We need all of the help we can get to cope with the ever increasing and intense workloads that we put computers through every day doing research and analysis of GENOMES worth of data," said Kelly Carpenter, IT
Manager for the GSC at Washington University.

Various customers in Asia have chosen the IBM eServer BladeCenter including Baycorp Advantage, Proteome Systems and Virtual Offis. Baycorp Advantage selected IBM BladeCenter technology for its physical server consolidation capability. Baycorp Advantage, which is one of the largest single sources of data-based business intelligence in Australia and New Zealand, will run various applications from core infrastructure services such as: proxy servers, web servers, Oracle database servers, business intelligence reporting servers, as well as a number of home grown and packaged business applications. Proteome Systems, a pioneer in proteomics technologies that help researchers identify and analyze proteins, has purchased an IBM eServer BladeCenter to help the company with proteome analysis by which they will work to discover solutions that help prevent and treat diseases. IBM eServer BladeCenter will be included in some of Proteome Systems' ProteomIQ platform sales.

Virtual Offis in Australia selected an IBM eServer BladeCenter system to power the companies Managed Service Provider business and will help optimize the customer's data center space.

"The IBM BladeCenter will reduce both our rack space by 50 percent, cabling and power requirements by more than 85 percent, and at the same time we will double our processing power," said Craig Allen, CEO of Virtual Offis,"
said Craig Allen, CEO of Virtual Offis. "This powerful, breakthrough technology from IBM will help us become an even more cost-effective business thus maintaining our competitive advantage."

In Europe, CGG (Compagnie Generale de Geophysique) is a leading supplier of geophysical products and services to the worldwide oil and gas industry, and has deployed an IBM eServer BladeCenter solution with 256 blades running Linux at their headquarters in France, in order to increase computing power.

"IBM's BladeCenter servers running Linux offer a highly attractive price/performance ratio for geophysics applications optimized for this type of architecture," said Christophe Barnini, Marketing Vice President at CGG.
"These highly scalable servers can easily run extremely specialized petroleum applications to help us with our search for oil and gas."

Delivering Integrated Fibre Capabilities
IBM also announced that it is the first major vendor to ship optional integrated fibre switching and Storage Area Networks (SAN) connectivity features for its IBM eServer BladeCenter and individual blade servers. This
storage capability is designed to help meet the demands of business critical datacenter applications. These storage features will give customers high performance connectivity technology to both new and existing
storage resources for application data serving and disaster recovery at an affordable price.

Leadership Performance
IBM also demonstrated the blade server's performance leadership by establishing a new number-one result for a two-way server on the Microsoft Exchange 2000 Benchmark.(1) This benchmark measures throughput in terms of
a specific profile of user actions, run over an eight-hour working day. Powered by Intel® Xeon(TM) processors and running Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Advanced Server with SP2, the IBM eServer BladeCenter supported a two-way record 8,700 MMB2 (users). The BladeCenter configuration showcased a platform optimized for Exchange solutions -- a 2-way server with 4GB of memory.

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 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, visit http://www.ibm.com.

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(a) The IBM eServer brand consists of the established IBM e-business logo with the following descriptive term "server" following it. The following are either trademarks or registered of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States or other countries or both: IBM, the IBM e-business logo, and BladeCenter. Intel and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All others are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
companies. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.

(1) This benchmark uses the "Medium User" setting of the Load Simulator MAPI tool and is meant to represent mail traffic from a typical corporate e-mail user, including common daily mail tasks such as sending, browsing,
reading, and forwarding messages, in addition to scheduling tasks and using distribution lists. Results current as of Feb. 11, 2003 and are available on www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/planning/2000/perfscal.asp.

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Paul McKeon
PR Manager
Servers, Storage & Linux
IBM Australia and New Zealand

m// +61 414 596 266
p// +61 2 9397 8813
f// +61 2 9397 8833
e// pamckeon@au1.ibm.com
aim// mckeonpa

Media Releases: www.ibm.com/news/au/

 

Kirsten Lodge
Corporate Communications
Proteome Systems Ltd

 

1/35-41 Waterloo Road
North Ryde NSW 2113
Locked Bag 2073
North Ryde NSW 1670
Australia

 

Direct ph: 61 2 8877 8913
Mob: 61 2 409 044 674
Switch: 61 2 9889 1830
Fax: 61 2 9889 1805
Email: kirsten@proteomesystems.com
Website: www.proteomesystems.com

 

Following is a media announcement from IBM featuring Proteome Systems:

 

Media Releases: www.ibm.com/news/au/

Customer Demand for IBM Blade Servers Reaches 5,000 Company Becomes Leading Server Vendor in Intel Xeon Processor-Based Blade Server Shipments
http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/EB506E6AFC670CDA85256CCB00683D40