Venture Capital Community Bolsters Support for Power.org

ARMONK, NY - 13 Dec 2005: At an event in Palo Alto, California tomorrow, venture capitalists and members of Power.org will announce a first-of-its-kind initiative to foster growth and widespread adoption of the Power Architecture through increased support and investment from the venture capital community.

Effective immediately, an advisory board of leading venture capitalists has joined Power.org to lead the organization’s efforts in driving increased investment in Power-focused companies. The advisory board represents a unique effort to foster a microelectronics architecture, signaling a growing investment opportunity for technology investors worldwide.

Power.org Venture Capitalist Advisory Board members include:

-- David Liddle, Managing Partner, USVP
-- Lip Bu Tan, Managing Partner, Walden International
-- Robert Jelski, Partner, 3i Ventures
-- Rob Chandra, General Partner, Bessemer
-- Carl Everett, Partner, Accel Partners

The advisory board consists of leading investors in the hardware and semiconductor sectors. The board will work with Power.org to analyze and validate new disruptive hardware technologies and strategies, driving momentum around Power Architecture technology.



To date, more than a dozen VCs including Walden International, USVP and 3i have funded thirteen Power.org member organizations, building support of the architecture and spurring development based on open hardware standards.

A significant part of Power Architecture momentum has been its wide spread acceptance in gaming consoles. IBM’s development and production of the widely anticipated Cell processor is progressing ahead of initial expectations.

“Power.org’s growing ecosystem of large and small companies, developers and venture investors are proving everyday that the Power processor architecture is jump starting innovation in the hardware sector,” said Nigel Beck, chairman of Power.org. “Startups are the key ingredient of our collaborative innovation model and we are pleased to see that the venture community is focused on funding new companies to prompt future product development and innovation for customers intent on realizing the benefits of Power.”

New Venture-Backed Organizations Join Power.org
Announced today, three new innovators in technology design and services joined Power.org as member organizations, including:

-- IP-Extreme
-- Nallatech
-- Azul Systems

The Promise of Power
Power.org is accomplishing with hardware, what Linux has already accomplished in software: providing an open platform on which developers can collaboratively innovate to provide new solutions to help businesses meet today’s challenges and opportunities. Where microprocessor architectures have traditionally been proprietary, Power.org uses an open hardware architecture to drive standards and provide a platform for collaborative innovation around new products and systems -- from embedded devices to supercomputers. IBM’s success in getting VCs in its partner network to invest heavily in Power and Power.org signifies growing support of the benefits of the architecture. They include:

-- Startups can enter new markets quickly with low extra investment;
-- Lower development cost thanks to standardized platforms and effective
IP sharing;
-- Quickly build new businesses through collaboration
-- Achieve scale by joining forces with industry leaders in strategy,
marketing, R&D, manufacturing.

IBM and Power
IBM developerWorks, a program that provides essential resources for developers to begin developing with IBM technologies, is leveraging the momentum of its 5 million registered users to build a strong community around Power Architecture.

The Power Architecture Technology section of developerWorks delivers top-notch content, forums, and educational tutorials to developers. developerWorks has had more than 800,000 unique visitors so far in 2005 with more than 13,000 users having registered for the Power Architecture downloads, tools, training, forums and more, serving the hardware designers and software developers who work with this open microprocessor architecture. In 2005 alone, developerWorks published more than 120 articles about the Power Architecture for interested developers around the world; and last month, IBM launched the Cell Broadband Engine resource center on developerWorks.

Power.org
Power Architecture microprocessors are the heartbeat of products ranging from video gaming systems and telematics to supercomputers. For more information, visit www.power.org. Formed just one year ago, its members include: IBM, Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Jabil Circuit, Novell, P.A. Semi, Red Hat, Synopsys, and Thales.
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Kevin Acocella

IBM Media Relations

IBM

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