Blade.org Boasts Investements

SAN FRANCISCO -- Blade.org, the open collaborative community driving innovation in blade-based solutions, today announced that the global venture capital community has invested over $1 billion in the last two years to fund companies developing emerging technologies and solutions to help customers simplify business computing with blade servers.

To celebrate the investment milestone and its one-year anniversary, Blade.org convened in Silicon Valley with its members and leaders of the global venture capital community today to help map the future trajectory of the blade server market -- the industry's fastest growing server market segment predicted to reach $11 billion in revenue by 2010.(1)

In 2006, technology leaders, including Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, Citrix, IBM (NYSE:IBM - News), Intel, NetXen, Nortel and VMware joined to form Blade.org, an open collaborative community dedicated to building blade-based solutions for customers. From eight founding companies, Blade.org has grown to nearly 100 members in just one year, including leading blade hardware and software providers, developers, distribution partners and end users from around the globe.

IBM and Intel took a unique approach in the blade server industry in 2004 by opening the architecture and specifications of the IBM BladeCenter system. This move to open opportunities for innovation has enabled a growing community of over 400 technology companies who have downloaded the specifications for free to begin to shape the future of the blade server platform. Additionally, the need for the Blade.org community was identified by venture capital firms that recognized the opportunity for up and coming technology companies to play a critical role in the fast growing blade server market.

To date, more than 50 global venture capital firms, including Walden International, USVP, Accel, Austin Ventures, Mayfield and others have many of Blade.org's member organizations, building support for the blade server architecture and spurring development based on open hardware standards. Blade.org members are actively collaborating to build blade-related technologies, such as special purpose blade servers, interconnect technologies, management tools and vertical industry solutions."By providing an environment that sparks innovation among members, Blade.org is bringing new blade server applications and solutions to market more quickly, creating opportunity for the entire blade ecosystem," said David Liddle, general partner, U.S. Venture Partners. "With contributions from hardware and software vendors, to developers and investors, to the end-user looking for the best way to do business, the collaborative environment of Blade.org is forging the next generation in blade technology. Nearly half of the Blade.org ecosystem is made out of venture capital investments, and we believe this is expected to have significant impact on shaping up the future direction of this technology."

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