* IBM aims at small businesses with slimmed-down BladeCenter
IBM this month will ship a pared-down BladeCenter server chassis that it claims will entice small and midsize businesses to adopt blade servers.
IBM will offer a series of five packages to go with the $1,000 BladeCenter chassis. The stripped-down chassis will not include a floppy drive, redundant management modules, or attachments to a storage-area network. As many as 14 blades can fit in the 7U high chassis.
The offerings around BladeCenter Express, as it is called, include Business in a Box with Linux Solutions, Business in a Box with Microsoft Solutions, a Citrix MetaFrame package, a package for bioinformatics and IBM DB2.
Business in a Box with Linux Solutions is designed for customers that do not want to spend a lot. It uses Linux and open source applications for file and print, e-mail and Web applications.
Business in a Box with Microsoft Solutions includes IBM Director, which lets small businesses manage their infrastructure and use the bundle for e-mail and file and print sharing.
The IBM eServer BladeCenter for BioInfomatics includes eServer BladeCenter JS20 servers with Power processors, running Linux and open source software. Researchers can run high-performance applications with the blades.
IBM also announced two other BladeCenter initiatives. One is with SteelEye Technology, which creates application availability and replication software called LifeKeeper. The other is with Citrix, whose MetaFrame technology consists of a hosted-client setup where users can be managed from a single location.
According to IDC, blade servers are the fastest growing server segment, growing 60% compounded annually from 2003 to 2007. They will represent one in every four servers by 2007. IDC estimates that IBM owned 43.8% of the market in the second quarter of 2004.
The new BladeCenter chassis is expected to be available Nov. 24.
