CHARLES SCHWAB, IBM TO DEPLOY NEXT GENERATION OF SUPPORT TECHNOLOGY FOR ONLINE TRADING NEW SERVER TECHNOLOGY AIMED AT ACHIEVING HIGHEST LEVEL of Reliability And Availability in the Industry
PR NEWSWIRE - June 16, 1999 11:17
NEW YORK, Jun 16, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- IBM and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. today announced they will work together to implement next-generation technology designed to achieve the highest level of systems availability and scalability in the online brokerage industry.
The online brokerage industry has seen significant growth over the past two years, expanding beyond the early adopter stage to become the most empowering technological development for mainstream investors. As of April 1999, 56.8 million Americans invest online, and collectively hold $523 billion in assets. If an online broker wants to compete aggressively in the future, it must develop and maintain sophisticated and reliable data center technology.
"At Schwab, innovation around technology has never been just about the technology," said Dawn Lepore, executive vice president and chief information officer for Charles Schwab. "Our focus has always been on the customer, ensuring that their online experience is exceptional and continues to exceed the high standards of our company. I'm particularly proud that Schwab and IBM will be teaming up for this initiative, setting a new standard for the way technology is applied in the online brokerage arena," she said.
IBM will work with Schwab to deploy IBM's Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex technology (GDPS), which enables servers located as far as 25 miles apart to share data as if they were side by side. This new technology is expected to maximize Schwab's ability to handle unexpected volume swings and any random site outages, in an effort to make end-user service disruptions a thing of the past.
Schwab already uses IBM's S/390 servers and Parallel Sysplex clustering technology to support its brokerage operation, handling more than $10.4 billion a week on the Internet alone.
In a Parallel Sysplex cluster all data are available to every server, allowing workload to be moved to any server in the cluster in the rare instance of a system failure. As capacity demand grows, additional servers can be added easily to the cluster.
"With this project, Schwab is raising the bar on IT standards for the online brokerage industry," said Linda Sanford, general manager, IBM Global Industries. "Schwab's decision to work with us on this project speaks volumes about its commitment to being an e-business leader. IBM will help Schwab to deliver the high level of service its online customers deserve andexpect."
Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., serves 6.1 million active accounts with $564 billion in customer assets. Schwab currently has 2.7 million active online accounts with $234 billion in customer assets. Schwab provides a full-service investing experience to customers through a multi-dimensional offering of the Internet, 305 branch offices, speech recognition and touch-tone telephone technologies, multilingual and international technologies, and direct access to professionals day or night.
Schwab online investors transact over $10 billion in securities through schwab.com each week. Schwab has won numerous awards for its leadership in technology, including the Global Information Infrastructure Award for Top Commerce site, the CIO 100 Award, PC World's 1999 World Class Award for the best Web Brokerage Site and has been recognized by Business 2.0 as one of the 100 Hottest Companies on the Net. Schwab has been a pioneer in online investing and has been a leader in customer technologies for 15 years. Member SIPC/NYSE (0699-3191).
IBM IBM is the leading technology partner to the world's financial services industry. Working directly with its financial services customers, IBM develops and deploys mission-critical industry-specific technology solutions. Those solutions comprise the full range of IBM capabilities including consulting, software, hardware, research and services. For more information on IBM, visitwww.ibm.com.
SOURCE Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (C) 1999 PR Newswire. All rights reserved. prnewswire.com -0- CONTACT: Tracey Gordon, 415-636-5484, or mobile, 415-215-4255, or
tracey.gordon@schwab.com, or Rebecca Metz, 415-636-0421, or
rebecca.metz@schwab.com, both of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.; or Nancy Kaplan
of IBM Corporation, 914-642-5828, or mobile, 914-843-4029, or nkaplan@us.ibm.com
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax, 800-758-5804, ext. 154881
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