terms of reduced asset cost and 'Total Cost of Ownership'. This TCO factor is becoming dominated by issues like floor space, power consumption, thermal management and system maintenance costs.

At the same time the workload on IT systems is increasing much faster than the budgets. More importantly however, the dynamics of the workload are also changing. Successful companies need to be more agile in responding to changing business conditions and need an IT infrastructure which can adapt equally fast. New business models are also emerging with analysts predicting that by 2010, 25% of all IT services will be supplied through utility computing models, requiring even more dynamic workload capabilities. To add to this challenge, the size of the industry, particularly with respect to the investment in software and systems, demands an evolutionary forward migration path. The industry does not tolerate 'fork lift' upgrades.