IBM System Design and Engineering Innovation Is Recognized by Nine Awards at CeBIT

Today at CeBIT, the leading European trade fair for information technology, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that the iF International Forum Design is awarding IBM nine Design Innovation Awards for superior products and solutions. Eight out of the nine awards, including the iF GOLD, were granted to IBM’s industry leading storage products.

“This is great recognition for IBM’s storage leadership and our ability to help clients meet their information on demand needs, as we continue to push ahead of the competition in the areas of product innovation, ease-of-use and design leadership,” said Andy Monshaw, general manager, IBM System Storage. “IBM’s long, rich history in product design continues to manifest itself in industry leading systems and pioneering solutions. Today’s awards highlight the dedication and passion IBM has poured into this area.”

The prestigious iF product design award is given annually to companies that achieve significant breakthroughs in design and collaborative innovation of products and solutions across a wide variety of industries. IBM was recognized for its innovation and expertise in storage and server product design.

“IBM’s approach to user focused, purposeful design is at the core of IBM’s design philosophy,” said Lee Green, vice president of values and brand experience, IBM. “We are now offering IBM Design Consulting as a client service engaging with clients that range from a focus on consumer electronics to medical devices and in vehicle telematics.”

The awards given to IBM celebrate its unique ability to provide clients with industry leading storage and server solutions. Each of the new products that were recognized today demonstrates inventive design aspects focused on meeting the needs of the end user.

The iF GOLD award for excellence was granted to the IBM System Storage TS3310, a modular, scalable tape library designed to address the data storage needs of rapidly growing companies who find themselves space and resource-constrained with regard to tape backup and other tape applications. The system has the ability to scale vertically, stacking one expansion unit on top of another in a rack cabinet. This enables the product to not only meet the needs of small companies, but also scales for growth to maximize long term storage capacities. The system utilizes a user-friendly, icon-driven color touch-screen and is designed for ease of use and intuitive operation. This ultimately enables quick location, diagnosis, and repair of components.

Among the other products selected by the iF International Forum Design:

-The IBM System x 3550: a sleek 1u server designed for large enterprise and SMB accounts with highly constrained datacenter environments and demanding application workloads that need extreme rack optimized designs, with the latest technologies that are integrated, cost sensitive and virtualization capable.

-The IBM System Storage EXP3000: an entry-level data storage server that is optimized for cost-sensitive and space-limited environments and employs a user-centered design that enables ease of use and simple tool-less installation and removal of all components.

-The IBM System Storage N7000 Series: a modular disk storage system that delivers high-end enterprise storage and data management value ideal for large-scale applications, while helping to anticipate growth, maintain data availability and reduce costs.

-The IBM System Storage N5000 Series: a modular disk storage system designed to address the entire spectrum of data availability challenges while offering value in price and scalability. Built-in enterprise serviceability and manageability features support efforts to increase reliability and simplify storage infrastructure and maintenance.

-The IBM System Storage N3700: a filer that integrates storage and storage processing into a single unit, facilitating affordable network deployments.

-The IBM System Storage DS4700: a NEBS-compliant disk storage server designed to address requirements for companies in the telecommunications industry, as well as other segments, such as oil and gas, meeting standards for electromagnetic compatibility, thermal robustness, earthquake and office vibration resistance, and provides protection for the product components from airborne contaminants.

-The IBM System Storage EXP810: a data storage expansion unit capable of 4.8 Terabytes of physical storage, with a user-centered and tool-less design featuring redundant power, cooling, and disk modules for ease of use and simple serviceability.

-The IBM System Storage TS3400: an affordable, space-friendly tape library for users in remote locations that supports enterprise-class technology and encryption capabilities.