IBM unveils green retail platform

IBM has launched a suite of technologies and services aimed squarely at improving both the energy efficiency as well as operational efficiency of retail stores.

Called the Green Retail Store portfolio, the suite includes high performance point of sales systems, blades servers, and system management software that drive deployment of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly retail systems from the front of store to the back office.

IBM says retailers were always looking for ways to differentiate and build customer loyalty – and that consumers were showing a preference for environmentally responsible retailers.

The core of portfolio is a SurePOS 700, the number one selling point of sale system in the world, which offers a choice of three energy-efficient processors that help reduce power consumption by 36 per cent and more.

A large retailer considering replacement of 5,000 terminals with new units operating at 33 per cent more energy efficiency can reduce annual energy cost for POS terminals alone by US$131,000 (A, or nearly US$1 million over the average seven-year life of newly deployed IBM machines.

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VC firms tip US$1 billion into blade sector

JUST one year after it was set up, the open collaborative community driving innovation in blade-based systems,Blade.org, says its venture capital firms have tipped more than US$1 billion into companies developing emerging blade technologies.

The blade server market remains the industry’s fastest growing server segment and is expected to grow to reach $US11 billion by 2010.

From eight founding members a year ago, including IBM, Citrix, Brocade and Intel, Blade.org has grown to nearly 100 members, made up of hardware and software providers, developers, distributors and large end user customers.

The blade initiative started four years ago when IBM and Intel opened the architecture and specifications of the IBM BladeCenter system. More than 400 tech firms have now downloaded the specifications for free to begin to shape the future of the blade server platform.

Additionally, the need for the Blade.org community was identified by venture capital firms that recognized the opportunity for up and coming technology companies to play a critical role in the fast growing blade server market.

More than 50 global venture capital firms, including Walden International, Accel and Austin Ventures and many of Blade.org's member organizations, building support for the blade server architecture and spurring development based on open hardware standards.

"By providing an environment that sparks innovation among members, Blade.org is bringing new blade server applications and solutions to market more quickly, creating opportunity for the entire blade ecosystem," said US Venture Partners general partner David Liddle.

“Nearly half of the Blade.org ecosystem is made out of venture capital investments, and we believe this is expected to have significant impact on shaping up the future direction of this technology."

By combining storage, networking and servers, blade server systems simplify business computing for customers. The shape of each blade server is slim and, like a book, slides into a system like books on a shelf and carries its own processors, memory, storage, network controllers, operating system and applications. Each server also shares a mid- or backplane, which enables power, fans, floppy drives, switches, and ports to be shared.

The benefits of the blade approach include improved security, improved virtualisation, and massively reduced power and cooling demands for data centre managers.

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