PHASE 2 Selects IBM Technology to Help Grow Its Business, Phases Out Dell

Software as a Service Company Replaces Dell Blades With IBM System x, Expects to Lower Energy Costs by Over 65%.

ARMONK, NY and HONOLULU, HI .- IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that PHASE 2 International, a leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, selected IBM technology to enable the company to support more clients while lowering energy use by over 65 percent.

Fast growing, Honolulu-based PHASE 2 works with an expanding base of mainly small and medium-sized business clients, simplifying their IT operations by providing access to high-end business software applications through the convenient SaaS model. The company offers clients a broad range of cloud services -- from e-mail and customer relationship management to Web conferencing and document management -- all delivered across the Internet.

After more than doubling its business in the first half of 2008, PHASE 2 quickly found that its Dell blade server-based data center was nearing its capacity and potentially inhibiting the company’s ability to continue to grow and support new clients. To address those and other potential data center limitations, PHASE 2 selected the IBM System x3850 M2 to replace its Dell servers, increasing PHASE 2’s ability to serve new clients.

“At the end of the day, PHASE 2 is selling service. The ability of our technology to scale along with the needs of our clients and provide them a good experience is directly tied to our success,” said Kevin Doherty, CEO of PHASE 2 International. “We’re confident that our new IBM System x servers will grow along with our business, helping us to deliver unbeatable service and support to our clients.”

Thanks to the energy efficient design of the System x3850 M2, PHASE 2 also expects to lower its energy use by more than 65 percent while increasing the amount of capacity available to support its clients in the same amount of space.

PHASE 2 plans to join the SaaS Enablement Network of infrastructure providers that use IBM server technology to help ISVs deliver interoperable SaaS solutions, which allow disparate applications to work together.

“IBM sees SaaS as part of a larger cloud services opportunity. As part of its strategy to capture this cloud computing opportunity, IBM is helping ISVs design, build, deliver and market cloud services,” said Dave Mitchell, director of strategy, IBM Developer Relations. “Working with clients like PHASE 2, IBM is helping to accelerate the shift from traditional on-premise-only computing to cloud computing.”

PHASE 2 will run VMware on the System x3850 M2 as well as IBM System Storage N series. This highly reliable solution will allow PHASE 2 to ensure its clients have access to their business applications whenever and wherever they need them.

PHASE 2 believes its technology backbone sets it apart from other SaaS providers -- many of which use third party servers -- providing PHASE 2 a competitive advantage that allows it to confidently issue claims of reliability and security to clients.

Based on X-Architecture, IBM’s design blueprint for Intel-based servers, the System x3850 M2 is built with special features for fast performance and efficiency, allowing clients to support a large number of demanding business applications on a single server. The system offers flexible scalability that allows clients to easily expand their system from four sockets to 16, so clients can pay for more capacity only when they need it -- not up front as with other vendors.

IBM is the market leader in the Intel 4-socket segment by factory revenue, according to IDC (1).