Blade.org Announces New Chairman and Expands Its Board of Directors

PISCATAWAY, NJ--(Marketwire - November 2, 2009) - Blade.org, the premier open community dedicated to creating solutions based on the blade server platform pioneered by IBM and Intel, announced Alex Yost, vice president and business line executive for IBM System x and BladeCenter, will assume the role of chairman effective immediately. The Blade.org Board of Directors unanimously confirmed Yost for the position. Yost has been involved in Blade.org for a number of years, and was a natural choice for the chairman role.

"The Blade.org membership is driving client value through innovation and collaboration," said Yost. "Blade.org plays an essential role in bringing companies together and accelerating availability of new technologies."

"Alex's experience and leadership as IBM vice president and business line executive for System x and BladeCenter will be a great asset to the organization going forward, and he will bring new energy and new thinking to move Blade.org forward and into the next decade," said Doug Balog, Blade.org founder and chairman emeritus, serving for the past four years. Balog's role at IBM recently changed, and he now serves as vice president and business line executive for Disk Systems in IBM Storage.

Under Balog's leadership, Blade.org grew from an idea in 2005 to an industry-impacting organization today, bringing together a broad ecosystem of clients, hardware and software vendors, venture capitalists and other industry participants. Membership has more than doubled since 2006; and not only does Blade.org have a strong base of member firms, client membership is the largest it's been. In addition, the blade industry has enjoyed similar growth; during Balog's tenure, blade servers grew as a percent of the market to well over 20 percent.

The Blade.org Board of Directors also approved Emulex and QLogic to fill two vacant Governing Board seats. Both companies have been engaged in Blade.org since February 2006.

Taufik Ma, Emulex's vice president of Product Management, will be the primary representative from Emulex to the Blade.org Governing Board. Members of Taufiks' team have been very active in Blade.org, taking on roles such as chairing the Blade.org Solutions Committee; contributing technical expertise to Blade.org white papers; hosting Blade.org webinars; and emceeing the 2009 Blade.org Technology Symposium.

"Emulex recognizes the value provided to members of Blade.org in developing solutions for the blade market," said Taufik Ma, Emulex. "We continue to collaborate with the Blade.org members to produce cutting edge blade server-based solutions that are fostered by the Blade.org ecosystem, which is focused on delivering valuable solutions to blade computing customers."

QLogic's path to the Blade.org Board of Directors took a slightly different path. Prior to the acquisition of NetXen by QLogic, Vikram Karvat served as NetXen's representative on the Blade.org Board of Directors. After the successful acquisition and integration of NetXen earlier this year, QLogic is continuing the role NetXen began in 2007 as a steward of the blade server market.

"Since joining Blade.org more than three years ago, QLogic has collaborated closely with fellow members to drive innovation in the context of the blade server paradigm," said Karvat, senior director, Host Solutions Group, QLogic. "With more than 70 percent Fibre Channel mezzanine adapter market share, QLogic has made blade server platforms like IBM's BladeCenter a strategic focus for the company. It's a privilege for me to represent QLogic on the Blade.org board, where I hope to foster continued cooperation with other members in the development of interoperable Fibre Channel, Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet solutions in bladed environments."

The Blade.org Board of Directors now includes the American Power Conversion Corp., BLADE Network Technologies, Brocade, Emulex, IBM, Intel and QLogic.

About Blade.org

Blade.org is a collaborative vendor and end-use community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of blade server solutions. The organization provides leadership to the blade market and fosters a thriving industry ecosystem focused on delivering valuable solutions to blade computing customers. More information is available at www.blade.org.

Contact Information: Media Contact Lisa Galish galish@us.ibm.com (919) 486-2280