Google (GOOGL 0.04%), IBM (IBM 0.08%), Mellanox (MLNX), NVIDIA (NVDA 0.12%), and privately held Tyan Computer announced today that they will team up to form a development alliance to focus on data center technologies as diverse as servers, networking, storage, processing power, and cloud data storage.
The "OpenPOWER Consortium" puts IBM's POWER microprocessor architecture into the open-source area, making its intellectual property licensable and "greatly expanding the ecosystem of innovators on the platform," according to IBM's press release.
"Developers now have access to an expanded and open set of server technologies for the first time," said IBM Senior Vice President and Group Executive Steve Mills in a statement. "This type of 'collaborative development' model will change the way data center hardware is designed and deployed."