IBM Rochester made a concerted pitch to the SMB market yesterday with the launch of two new System i models firmly billed as a better alternative to Windows-based systems.

Many commentators within the System i ecosphere have been urging Big Blue to introduce truly low-cost entry-level models for years. The System i, they say, has been hamstrung by its inability to compete with commodity servers. With the introduction of the model 515 and the model 525, it looks like IBM has gone a long way to answer its critics.

The System i 515 Express is designed for small but growing companies with up to forty users. The System i 525 Express is aimed at bigger firms. The 515 features a 1-way, 1.9 GHz POWER5+ processor, upgradeable to a 2-way, and the 525 features a 1-way processor that can be activated into a 2-way with the System i’s Capacity on Demand function.

iNEWSWire will have the full UK sterling list prices next week, but IBM yesterday quoted a starting price for the model 151 at $7,995 USD which includes five user licences. This potentially represents a price cut of 50% compared to the earlier model 520 entry-level model and there are further savings to me made depending on how the systems are configured.

Whereas the model 520 was purposely limited to around 600 CPW, no such limitations exist on the new models. IBM says that for applications that are not I/O intensive this translates to 3800 CPW (batch or 5250) for the 1-way model 515 and 7100 CPW (batch or 5250) for the 2-way system. For applications that are disk I/O intensive, it says that this translates to 800 CPW (batch or 5250) for either the 1-way or 2-way 515.

IBM says that it is offering these unrestricted capacities due to customer demand and it has also simplified the way it charges its customers, opting for a more user-based pricing model.

There were more hardware announcements to come yesterday, with the top-of-range model 595’s processor boosted to 2.3 GHz , a 20% GHz increase, and a resulting maximum of 216,000 CPW, according to IBM. There was also a new entry tape drive, additional configuration flexibility for 1.5 GB disk controllers and 70 GB disk drives for the 520 Express Editions.

Seamus Quinn, editor.