IBM today announced that Kennametal, Inc., a leading global supplier of tooling, engineered components and advanced materials that are consumed in production processes, has selected IBM Power Systems to replace its HP hardware.

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Kennametal serves a vast array of end markets, including industries such as aerospace, automotive, construction and farm machinery, power generation and transmission equipment, home appliances and oil and gas exploration. The company used the IBM Power Systems Migration Factory to move from HP Superdomes to six POWER6-based Power 570 servers running SAP and supporting applications.

"We were looking for reliable servers to support our SAP shop, and after an exhaustive RFP process we determined that IBM provided the best solution," said Ron Allen, manager of global IT services, Kennametal. "The migration from HP to IBM has gone as planned, on time and within budget. We're very pleased with the IBM Migration Factory."

IBM introduced the Migration Factory five years ago to give clients easy access to IBM's industry-leading Power platform and a well-defined product and technology roadmap. Using a proven methodology that has helped thousands of customers, IBM minimizes the risk and maximizes return on investment for customers that switch to its Power Systems.

Customers that have switched to IBM Power systems are in a variety of industries, including financial services, communications, government, education, healthcare, retail, distribution, and others.

In total, IBM has helped more than 1,600 customers migrate from competitive HP, Sun and other platforms to IBM over the past three years, including more than 700 from HP to IBM alone.

"IBM's proven track record, advanced virtualization capabilities and our dynamic infrastructure offerings are generally key tipping points in customer decisions to make the move from HP to IBM," said Scott Handy, vice president, IBM Power Systems. "Those decisions have helped clients improve performance, increase utilization and lower operating costs. We've had a tremendous amount of success, won significant business from HP, Sun and others and stretched our lead in the UNIX market since the Power Systems Migration Factory program began several years ago."

About IBM Power Systems

For more information on IBM Power Systems visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/.

  Contact:   Ron Favali
             IBM
             727-489-7202
             favali@us.ibm.com

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SOURCE: IBM