IBM released several product enhancements, including a 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch, as a result of the manufacturer's plan to transform its BladeCenter architecture into a standard blade-server configuration for the industry, according to Information Week.


IBM has also created Blade.org, a huge joint venture which includes more than 75 well-known companies.
Furthermore, IBM announced that it intends to invest no less than $100 million on BladeCenter projects initiated by manufacturers who intend to produce dedicated products and systems.

"What we are seeing unfold is something that is not dissimilar to what happened early in the PC era, which is the potential for a de facto standard to emerge around blade servers," says Tim Dougherty, IBM's director of BladeCenter strategies.

It seems that the plan is working perfectly, as 17 new companies have recently joined the Blade.org organization, including industry leaders Bull, Lenovo, Symbol Technologies, and Wal-Mart, which will manufacture products and services to support IBM's BladeCenter blade-server platform.

The latest product developed by Blade.org is a 10 Gbps Ethernet switch from Blade Network Technologies, a follow-up of Nortel, which was developed especially for applications that have high-bandwidth necessities, including VoIP telephony or IP television.
It seems that the 10 Gbps switch has three 10 Gbps uplink ports which support a throughput of 90 Gbps.

IBM added that it plans to release a software development kit for BladeCenter, developed in order to ease the production of BladeCenter products and services.