IBM aims servers, AIX 5L at Sun

Intensifying efforts to win Sun Microsystems' market share, IBM will unveil two midrange servers and a new version of its high-end server operating system with support for the open-source Linux. The OS, AIX 5L, Version 5.1, comes to market at the same time as two new midrange servers, p620 and p660, that IBM says are less expensive than Sun's comparable products. They are the first servers in IBM's mid-priced family built with both SOI and copper technology. They also used the Chipkill system that takes failed memory off-line without disrupting server operations. The basic p620 costs $17,000 and the p660 starts at $21,000.

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