Major System z announcement next Tuesday

IBM will hold a System-z related announcement at 10am Eastern next Tuesday, Oct. 21. You can register for the System z webcast here.

The event will include Karl Freund, VP of System z marketing, and Mike Augustine, the System z product manager, as the featured speakers. Others involved in a live Q&A at the event will be:

• John Eells, z/OS Technical Marketing
• Allen Marin, System Storage Market Manager
• Nancy Scala, Linux and z/VM Product Manager
• Kurt Johnson, System z Software Market Manager
• Greg Hutchison, IBM System z, Certified IT Specialist and Advanced Technical Support

Here’s a summary of the event:

There is new System z technology on the horizon that could change the way your organization thinks about mainframes. Technology that delivers the granular scalability, flexibility, and resiliency you need — at the lower capacity entry point you want. Its advanced technology fights old myths and perceptions – it’s not just for banks and insurance companies.

For any organization that wants to ramp up innovation, boost efficiencies and lower costs – pretty much any enterprise, any size, any location, z Can Do IT.

The Webcast description repeats “z Can Do IT” enough times that I’m wondering whether Rob Schneider might make a guest appearance.

Anyway, my guess is that the announcement will be for the “Business Class” version of the System z10 — a smaller version of the big boy. But I don’t have any definitive knowledge on it.

The Mainframe blog on Typepad had a blurb about this but for some reason has taken it down.