IBM's new server to counter Oracle

International Business Machines (IBM), the largest computer-services provider, is introducing new server systems today, aiming to bolster its leading position as software rival Oracle Corp enters the market.

The Power7 systems will be tailored for specific projects, such as running electrical grids or financial analytics, Rodney Adkins, senior vice president for systems and technology, said last week in an interview. The systems, made of integrated servers, software and storage, will start selling this month.

The release marks the first new systems since Adkins took over IBM’s hardware division in October, after predecessor Bob Moffat left the company amid the Galleon Group insider-trading scandal. IBM’s focus on project-specific systems, along with investments in research and development, will help it gain market share even as Oracle starts selling similar servers with its acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc., he said.

“It’s easy in this industry to say, ‘I have this piece, I have this piece, I have this piece, now I have it all,’” said Adkins. “It really requires innovation.”

With the purchase of server maker Sun, Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison has said he plans to challenge IBM by selling computers packaged with software customized for industries, such as retailing.

Global sales of high-end servers will be about $14 billion this year, according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher IDC. IBM held 40 percent of that market in the third quarter, IDC’s most recent report. Hewlett-Packard Co. had 27 percent, followed by Sun with 26 percent.


Hardware Sales
Hardware sales make up 17 percent of Armonk, New York-based IBM’s total revenue, which topped $95 billion last year. The company is the world’s third-largest software maker, trailing Microsoft Corp. and Redwood City, California-based Oracle.

IBM offered to buy Sun for about $7 billion last year, according to people familiar with the matter. Oracle ultimately acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, and the deal closed last month.

IBM rose 52 cents to $123.52 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Feb. 5. The shares had fallen 5.6 percent this year before today.

Sun CEO's last tweet

In a tweeted goodbye, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems bowed out with a haiku.

Jonathan Schwartz's haiku on Twitter reads as follows: "Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more."

Within Twitter's 140-character limit, Schwartz tells his followers on Thursday that it's his last day at Sun. And that he'll miss it.

He had been expected to leave after Oracle Corp. closed its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. on Jan. 27.

Schwartz's following on Twitter swelled by at least 1,000 Thursday, to some 9,000, on the day of his post. Oracle declined to comment or confirm that Schwartz resigned.

Schwartz has been an avid blogger, and in 2006 asked federal regulators to allow companies to disclose significant financial information through blogs.

12 little-known facts about IBM

Few companies are as well known as the IT giant IBM. The US-based company popularly known as 'Big Blue' is the global leader in hardware, software, services and consulting space. The company has who's who of the global business world as its clients and is among the top chipmakers in the world.

But few know that IBM is also the highest patent earner, has a long list of tech inventions to its credit and makes 35 of the world's 100 most powerful supercomputers.

eWeek has compiled a list of little-known facts about IBM. Here are few from the list.

Humble beginning
IBM was founded in 1896 as Tabulating Machine Company by Herman Hollerith in New York. It was incorporated as Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation on June 16, 1911, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1916. It became IBM in 1924 when Thomas J Watson took over.

Headquartered in Armonk, Town of North Castle, New York, the 283,000 square foot IBM building is located on a 25 acre site. With presence in more than 170 countries, IBM Global Services is among the world's largest business services provider.

Highest patent earner
In 2008, IBM became the first company to ever earn more than 4,000 US patents in a single year. According to the company, 2008's patent issuances were nearly triple that of Hewlett-Packard's and exceed the issuances of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Apple, EMC, Accenture and Google combined.

Inorganic kitty
Since the acquisition of Lotus in 1995, the company has been on an acquisition spree. IBM has bought more than 130 companies since then. Some of the companies acquired by the Big Blue include: Mainspring Business Strategy consulting, Informix Corporation Database Software, CrossWorlds Software, Metamerge, Trellisoft, Think Dynamics, Aptrix, Daksh e-Services, Venetica, Network Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Tech edge
IBM has a long list of technologies to its credit. The list includes: magnetic stripe, UPC bar codes, floppy disks, hard disk drives, vacuum tape drives, relational databases, Random Access Memory, RAMAC, the world's first computer disk storage system. IBM introduced the first computerised golf scoreboard at the 1967 Greater Dallas Open.

Women-friendly
With over 4 lakh employees worldwide, IBM is among the largest IT employer in the world. The company also boasts of a high number of senior women employees. According to reports, the company employs more than 1,000 senior women executives from mere 185 in 1997. Also, 65 per cent of IBM’s women executives are working mothers. More than 130,000 IBM employees and retirees are registered with the company's global volunteer programme called 'On Demand Community'.

Powers gaming giants
IBM provides processor chips that power world's top gaming giants, including Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360. In May 1997, Deep Blue (chess computer), a chess-playing computer developed by IBM created history by defeating world champion Garry Kasparov.







Global banks use IBM's mainframe
IBM's mainframe, the company's line of business computers, continues to be the choice of almost all top banks in the world. IBM in the first quarter of 2009, announced that its System Z mainframe business grew 37% in emerging markets such as China and India.









Nobel winners
Five IBMers have won Nobel Prizes for physics. Their names include Leo Esaki (1973), Gerd K Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer (1986), J Georg Bednorz and K Alex Mller (1987),

In addition to Nobel prizes, IBM researchers have been recognised with seven US National Medals of Technology, five National Medals of Science and 21 memberships in the National Academy of Sciences.





Supercomputer leader
According to TOP500 list of Supercomputers, IBM is a provider of 35 of the world's 100 most powerful supercomputers. Till recently, IBM's supercomputer Roadrunner held the top spot on the list of the World's top 10 fastest supercomputers.

However, according to the recent ranking, the world's fastest supercomputer is Cray XT5, also known as Jaguar. Jaguar bags the no. 1 spot, beating IBM's Roadrunner, which has been holding the top crown since past 18 months.



IBM's 3D avatar
In 2007, IBM researchers in Switzerland unveiled details of prototype visualization software that let doctors view medical data of patients using a 3D avatar of the human body. The Anatomic and Symbolic Mapper Engine (ASME) provides an interactive 3D model of the human body that displays health information at a glance. This helps doctors to visualise the medical history of their patients.

The company is also credited for playing a key role in developing the heart lung machine, for having invented the first continuous blood separator which is used to treat leukemia patients, and has helped develop the field of relaxometry which plays a role in medical magnetic resonance imagery (MRI).

Smart toll project
The company is credited for implementing a project that brought down traffic emission in Stockholm and channelised traffic movement. IBM worked with the City of Stockholm, Sweden to implement a smart toll systems to reduce gridlock, lower emissions and save the city’s residents time and money.

The system reduced traffic by 25%, and the city saw a drop in emissions from road traffic up to 14%. Greenhouse gases have fallen 40% in the inner city.

Revenue

IBM announced its third-quarter 2009 net income was $3.2 billion compared with $2.8 billion in the third quarter of 2008, an increase of 14%. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2009 was $23.6 billion, 1% up from the second quarter of 2009. IBM ended the third quarter of 2009 with $11.5 billion of cash on hand and generated free cash flow of $3.4 billion, excluding Global Financing receivables.

At the end of 2008, IBM recorded $103.6 billion in revenue, $12.3 billion net income and $109.5 billion total assets.

How some Tech Companies Got Their Names

Microsoft

The word Microsoft is derived from the words Microcomputer and Software and it has an interesting history. Bill Gates used the word Micro-Soft in a letter he wrote to Paul Allen, the other co-founder of this company on November 29, 1975 and they later registered this company in this name on November 26, 1976. The hyphen was eventually removed and it came to be known from then on as Microsoft.

Motorola

This company started as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, manufacturing battery eliminators. Founder Paul Galvin came up with the name Motorola when this company started manufacturing radios for cars in 1930. The name is a combination of the word "motor" and "Victrola", which was a popular radio company at the time.

Oracle

Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) while at Ampex Corporation. The code name for the project was called Oracle, because the CIA saw this as something like a system to give answers to all questions much like the mythical Oracles of the ancient world.

Red Hat

This Linux distro that released in 1994 has an interesting history. Marc Ewing, who created this distro had been given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. However, he lost it and despite looking for it did not find it. The information is revealed in the manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux, which had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone. Interesting, isn't it?

SAP

SAP is an acronym for "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing" and was formed by four ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.

Sony

Formerly known as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., the co-founder of this company, Akio Morita realized that Americans had difficulty pronouncing this name while on a business trip to the US. He therefore tried to find a Romanized name for this company, which would be appealing to Americans and would also embody the spirit of the company. After trying out different names, they arrived at a decision to use "Sony" as the name. This word has been derived from the Latin word Sonus meaning sound, and Sonny a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster. They chose this word as this did not exist in any other language. Another theory suggests that the name was derived from the word Sun, because Japan is known as the Land of the Rising Sun and also the place of origin of this company.

Sun Microsystems

Stanford University graduate Andy Bechtolsheim designed what would become the first Unix workstation by Sun Microsystems, known as Sun 1 workstation for a project as a personal CAD workstation. The name SUN is an acronym of Stanford University Network that got stuck to the company from then on and Andy Bechtolsheim was one of the four founders.

Xerox

This company started as The Haloid Company in Rochester in 1906 when it manufactured photographic paper and equipment. It later changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958 and then dropped Haloid to become simply known as Xerox in 1961. The word Xerox has its roots in the Greek language, where "xer" means dry. Chestor Carlson, the inventor of dry copying named it thus to emphasize the fact that this process was dry and different from the prevailing wet copying method.

Oracle ends computer tie-up with HP

Oracle Corp has ended a high-profile computer-building partnership with Hewlett-Packard Co as Oracle prepares to acquire Sun Microsystems Inc, a rival of HP.

Sun, the world's No. 4 server maker, and Oracle have jointly developed a second-generation version of a specialised database computer, dubbed Exadata. Oracle and HP launched the first version a year ago.

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison unveiled the new machine, almost a year after he announced his company's entry into the hardware business with help from HP. At the time, he said that HP would be a key ally in that effort.

But the dynamics of that relationship have changed since April, when Oracle agreed to buy Sun for more than $7 billion. Hewlett-Packard and Sun are fierce rivals in the markets for server computers and storage equipment.

The new Exadata computer is the first of what Ellison has said will be many products that wed Sun's hardware with Oracle's software.

An Oracle spokeswoman said Oracle would continue to sell the Exadata computers, built in partnership with HP, until existing inventory is sold out, if customers request that model.

Officials at Hewlett-Packard could not be reached for comment.

When Ellison unveiled the HP partnership a year ago, he told customers that the product could not have been developed without that company's assistance. On Tuesday he bragged that Sun's technology made the database computer far superior to hardware from rivals including Teradata Corp and Netezza Corp.

"Everything is bigger about Exadata, Version 2. Everything is faster about Exadata, Version 2," he said during a presentation to customers that was broadcast over the Internet.

Oracle does not break out sales of the Exadata machine. But during the company's most recent earnings call, Ellison said that it was one of the most successful products he had launched since he founded the company more than 30 years ago.