IBM today announced a broad portfolio of offerings designed to help midsize companies tap into the power of today’s interconnected, instrumented and increasingly intelligent world. Leading the way are the new BladeCenter Express servers incorporating the latest IBM POWER6 microprocessors, the new IBM Comprehensive Data Protection Solution, and LotusLive Meetings, the newest addition to the LotusLive family of offerings.

IBM is strengthening its long-standing commitment to the midmarket with solutions specifically designed for midsize businesses that are making the promise of a smarter planet a reality for this critically important market. In particular, these latest offerings address the growing need for dynamic infrastructure, making more intelligent business decisions, energy efficiency and solutions for smarter work. Through its Express Advantage strategy, IBM continues to apply its unparalleled combination of research capabilities, industry skills, technology innovation and global business partner ecosystem to help midmarket companies succeed in today’s environment.

IBM’s strategy for a dynamic infrastructure offers a new model to help midsize organizations address rising cost pressures and higher service expectations while laying the foundation for increased productivity and value creation.

New solutions and offerings to enable a dynamic infrastructure include:

The BladeCenter JS23 Express and JS43 Express now offer greater scalability and IBM’s newest POWER6 processor technology and the ability to run AIX®, IBM i, and the Linux® operating systems simultaneously. This helps to deliver superior business and IT services with agility and speed. In addition, the BladeCenter J23 Express and J43 Express offer midsize companies a secure, resilient and dynamic infrastructure solution that helps drive cost down, reduces risk, improves energy efficiency and enhances flexibility. The new BladeCenter offerings are also ideal for infrastructure consolidation, virtualization, and demanding applications that require scalable performance and high memory capacity.(1)

The IBM Comprehensive Data Protection Solution eliminates the need to shut down mission critical applications for nightly backups, and provides immediate recovery following almost any type of data loss. The components include Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack, DS3000 Express/DS4000 Express/DS5000 series disk Systems and System x 3550 server, supported by IBM Services and Financing options. The solution helps to manage risk, provides full recoverability should files be compromised, increases productivity by eliminating downtime during recovery, while reducing storage requirements and increasing flexibility to manage data.

IBM Remote Managed Services - Express Remote Managed Infrastructure Services(2) (ERMIS) is a suite of modular service components that can help reduce IT costs by more than 20 percent. ERMIS provides remote monitoring, reporting and management capabilities across a customer’s IT infrastructure. The new release extends this support to Unified Communications devices and Linux server management. It provides near real-time reports, automated notifications and alerts to enhance IT management. The offering enhances IT service availability and performance with around-the-clock, proactive monitoring of networks, servers, applications, application infrastructure and unified communication.

IBM’s Internet Security Systems (ISS) has added the Proventia Web application security capability that helps protect applications, the largest point of vulnerability, from malware and attacks. This new capability is included at no additional cost to several Express offerings including the Express Multi-Function Security Bundle, the Express Managed Multi-Function Security Bundle and the Express Managed Protection Services for Server. The Proventia Web Application security capability helps reduce security costs for Express Managed Multi-Function Security Bundle users by as much as 55 percent. Express Multi-Function Security Bundle users will save an average of 15 to 20 times their investment.

IBM recently introduced the LotusLive family of offerings, a new integrated social networking and collaboration cloud service designed for businesses of all sizes.

The IBM Medical Devices Solution for Oracle Accelerate(3) is a full-function enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solution for the Medical Devices Industry, using Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Business Accelerators.

The IBM Express Retail Solution, a qualified SAP Business All-in-one Solution(4) supports end-to-end retailer requirements including demand management and planning, store operations, merchandise management and back office for finance for midsize retailers.