IBM is growing its hosted client line with an offering aimed at financial services institutions and banks. Big Blue last month rolled out its Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure, a server-based computing initiative that features its BladeCenter blade servers, VMwares virtualization technology and Citrix Systems Presentation Server technology.
Last week, IBM introduced the Systems Solutions for Branch Banking, a bundled offering that includes either BladeCenter or Intel-based xSeries servers running VMware and leveraging ClearCube Technologys I/Port Ethernet product to link a users desktop to the centrally located server.
The offering is designed to let banks centralize operations, enabling them to increase security and improve the manageability of their infrastructures. The systems support Linux and Windows and will grow as third-party software vendors develop applications for the BladeCenter platform.