ENTERTAINMENT

BMC Software, Inc., a leader in enterprise management, today announced its support of Intel(R) Itanium(R)-based platforms. To demonstrate its support, BMC Software has successfully tested the core components of its leading enterprise management solution, PATROL(R), with Intel Itanium 2-based systems. PATROL by BMC Software provides continuous service level improvements for a customer's enterprise by setting service levels, managing availability, measuring response time, minimizing downtime, increasing performance, predicting growth and reporting against Service Level Agreements (SLAs). BMC Software's Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Systems Management, Calvin Guidry, states that BMC Software has been working closely with Intel to provide support of Intel's Itanium 2 processors by engineering its PATROL portfolio to support the architecture and Itanium-compatible operating systems and applications as they become available. Guidry commented that the company will continue to work closely with Intel to deliver enterprise solutions that address customers' most demanding business-critical requirements, including cost-effective proactive management of BMC Software customers' IT investments. He added that BMC Software will increasingly combine the strengths of both companies to help mutual customers take advantage of the latest technology from Intel, while at the same time leveraging plans for Itanium 2-based systems in current IT investments, migration tools and services. Tony Massimini, chief of technology for Semico Research Corp., foresees the Itanium line from Intel as making major inroads into the enterprise market, such as application servers. "Intel has already firmly established the Xeon, Pentium III and Pentium 4 MPUs into the low-end and mid-range server space. Itanium is an important step for Intel to expand its business into more lucrative areas," said Massimini. "Recently, Intel has accelerated the roadmap for Itanium. Before commencing with commercial shipments, Intel invested about two years into application development with prototype systems in order to build a strong software foundation for Itanium. By working with Intel, BMC is addressing an important high growth market." Semico Research Corp. is a semiconductor market research and consulting company located in Phoenix, Arizona (www.semico.com ). BMC Software tested several PATROL solutions on Intel's Itanium 2-based systems including BMC Software's recently announced new console -- PATROL Central Operators - Windows Edition, PATROL Agent 3.5, Perform Agent 6.6, OS Knowledge Module (KM), Oracle KM, and the PATROL Console Server 7.2. The tests showed a 225 percent performance improvement of transaction throughput as well as a 26 percent reduction in CPU utilization. "We believe that the Itanium processor family-based systems will be one of the fastest growing enterprise computing platforms used by many of our current customers and prospects," said Guidry. "We are committed to supporting all leading enterprise hardware platforms and we look forward to taking further advantage of the power of the Itanium processor family in future releases of our solutions. The combination of BMC's powerful PATROL solutions with Itanium 2-based systems will give our mutual customers exceptional application performance and availability." "Intel is committed to enterprise computing and we are confident that the Itanium processor family is a significant step forward in lowering the cost of computing in a large environment while improving performance," said Will Swope, vice president and general manager, Software and Solutions Group, Intel Corporation. "BMC Software and Intel share a common vision of providing enterprise environments with optimal performance at the lowest total cost. We are pleased to have worked with BMC to ensure that their leading enterprise systems management software runs seamlessly on our top tier systems and we look forward to working with BMC on future releases of our respective solutions." "This announcement will be seen as a real plus for Intel and BMC Software customers as it helps them to meet the demanding service management performance needs of today's competitive marketplace," said Richard L. Ptak, Principal at Ptak & Associates. "Obtaining a positive return on investment remains a critical success factor in today's business environment. These complementary actions by BMC and Intel will aid customers in doing just that."