Tomorrow, March 2nd,  IBM kicks off a new portfolio of products in their System x line of product offerings.  One of the products will be a refresh and two of the products will be new.  However – don’t get your hopes up on seeing details on these new offerings, because tomorrow’s live event at 2 p.m. Eastern will be focused on the portfolio and the technology behind the portfolio.  IBM will not be disclosing any pricing, performance, model or Intel specifics until Intel’s launch dates on March 16 and March 30. 

“What Does 5 Mean to You” Campaign
5 business days ago, IBM kicked off a video campaign, “What Does 5 Mean to You.”  While a clever idea, I thought it missed on the messaging.  They were playing too much on “5″ – which will become clearer tomorrow when the announcement is made.  Here’s a look at all the videos:

What Are Your Top 5 IT Challenges (from the “What is 5″ videos)?
The key point of these videos were not to tease us, but to highlight the top 5 IT challenges that the new IBM portfolio will help solve.  Take a look at the top 5 IT challenges:

Challenge #5:  “My servers need Fibre Channel, Ethernet and iSCSI all operating at different speeds.  How do I simplify my networks right now?” 
Message:  Converged Infrastructure

Challenge #4:   “Why do I have to buy different types of servers whenever my needs change?  Can’t technology adapt to me?”
Message: Flexible Infrastructure

Challenge #3:  “My data costs keep growing.  How can I control the sprawl of my storage?”
Message: ?? Not Sure

Challenge #2:  “I don’t need a lot of complicated choices.  Why can’t I get a system that is set up for my workloads…right out of the box?”
Message: Like the IBM HS22v is “designed” for virtualization, we can expect this trend to continue with future IBM product releases…

Challenge #1:  “Technology competitors can all seem the same.  Doesn’t anyone have a game changing technology that will blow me away?”
Message: IBM expects the March 2nd announcement to be a game changer – and so do I. 

Check back with me tomorrow when IBM unveils What 5 Really Means!