IBM Goes After Dell, HP Blade Customers

IBM is planning to use a combination of services and incentives to entice customers currently using rival blade servers onto its BladeCenter platform.

IBM’s Blade Migration Center, introduced Sept. 20, is designed to steal away business from Hewlett-Packard and Dell and give IBM a greater lead in the fastest-growing segment of the server space, a space that analyst firm IDC, of Framingham, Mass., is predicting to swell from $2.2 billion in 2005 to $10 billion in 2010.

The Armonk, N.Y., tech giant will use 300 consultants worldwide in the program and also will offer existing HP blade server users $1,000 to make the switch. Included among the migration services the consultants will offer are assessments of users’ current setups, a lineup of what IBM architecture they’ll need, preparation and planning for the migration, and skill transfer and training.

“We’ve armed a global team of consultants with key tools, and collaborated with industry-leading technology vendors, to help clients easily migrate to blade servers to help simplify their data center infrastructure, reduce costs and improve business efficiency,” Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive for IBM’s BladeCenter business, said in a statement.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: IBM Goes After Dell, HP Blade Customers

Read Baseline‘s roundup of blade servers vendors: Blade Servers: Does Smaller Mean Better?