Message from the Vice President, System z Program Management, IBM Systems and Technology Group

The introduction of the IBM System z9 in September 2005 was a watershed moment in the continuing evolution of IBM On Demand mainframe products. The z9 brought unprecedented levels of virtualization, security, connectivity, and availability to what was already the world's leading mainframe server platform. The technologies which enable these capabilities span many disciplines. The talent and expertise of IBM engineers and scientists from around the world were required in order to develop this product. The result is a server platform which has exceeded its business objectives and provided our customers with unparalleled capacity, throughput, and system-level availability. The z9 has contributed significantly to the continued growth of IBM's share of the high-end business computing market space. This issue of the IBM Journal of Research and Development offers examples of the rich technical content which made these results possible.