A venture capital firm is shelling out up to US$100 million to drive worldwide growth of blade-server computing, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.Walden International in San Francisco will invest the money over the next five years into the development of technologies for IBM’s BladeCenter system, IBM said Friday. More than half of the money will be targeted at companies with facilities in Asian markets.IBM also said that 17 new members had joined its Blade.org group, which it formed in February to foster collaboration and development of new blade server technologies. The new members, which include Lenovo Group, NCR, Symbol Technologies and Wal-Mart Stores, bring the number of associates to about 75.IBM, along with Hewlett-Packard, owns the majority of the blade-server market, which market research firm IDC expects to grow from about $2 billion in 2005 to $10 billion by 2009. IBM earlier this year rolled out a new BladeCenter chassis and several blade servers, including a blade based on the Cell processor IBM is developing with Sony and Toshiba for Sony’s PlayStation game console. IBM is targeting the Cell processor-based blade for computation-intensive workloads and broadband-media applications. The company believes it will have the greatest impact for applications that involve streaming data or image manipulation in such industries as medical imaging and life sciences.-Shelley Solheim, IDG News Service (New York Bureau) Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Who’s paying your data integration tax? Reducing your data integration tax will get you one step closer to value—let’s start today. By Sandrine Ghosh Jun 05, 2023 4 mins Data Management feature 13 essential skills for accelerating digital transformation IT leaders too often find themselves behind on business-critical transformation efforts due to gaps in the technical, leadership, and business skills necessary to execute and drive change. By Stephanie Overby Jun 05, 2023 12 mins Digital Transformation IT Skills tip 3 things CIOs must do now to accurately hit net-zero targets More than a third of the world’s largest companies are making their net-zero targets public, yet nearly all will fail to hit them if they don’t double the pace of emissions reduction by 2030. This puts leading executives, CIOs in particul By Diana Bersohn and Mauricio Bermudez-Neubauer Jun 05, 2023 5 mins CIO Accenture Emerging Technology case study Merck Life Sciences banks on RPA to streamline regulatory compliance Automated bots assisted in compliance, thereby enabling the company to increase revenue and save precious human hours, freeing up staff for higher-level tasks. By Yashvendra Singh Jun 05, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation Robotic Process Automation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe