INDUSTRY

The Wimbledon tennis tournament will be utilizing a grid computer of Linux machines from IBM to keep the network and website up and running. Formerly the internal network was based around IBM's AIX. Now, the network at the All-England Club has been converted to the open source operating system. The Grid computing techniques will let IBM bring online more computer power needed to cope with peak visiting hours on the tournament website. Last year the official Wimbledon website served up more than 27 million pages to visitors. Courtside watchers are gathering information on 90 statistics many of which can have up to 80 different parameters. Now, as well as noting who was serving and where the ball landed in the court, the courtside data collectors note how it was returned, the kind of shot used, how a point was won or lost and whether it was due to a forced or unforced error. "We collect these statistics because people have asked for the information, whether that's a player or because commentators find it useful," says Mark McMurrugh, Wimbledon project director for IBM. Commentators are fed a screen full of statistics that they can call on to make graphics during TV coverage and to help viewers understand what is happening during a match. IBM is also planning PDAs for VIPs, guests and committee members during the two weeks of the tournament. The PDAs, which will be O2's XDA, will give users access to scores, statistics, biographies and plot their position on an interactive map of the All England Club.