Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM announced Tuesday that Cognos Software Inc., Citrix Systems Inc., Engineous Software Inc., Abaqus Inc., Actuate Corp., Fluent Inc. and Sefas Innovation Inc. have grid-enabled their applications with IBM's assistance—through the company's Solutions Grid for Business Partners Initiative.

A recent International Data Corp. report projected that grid computing will represent a $12 billion market by 2007.

Click here for an analysis on grid computing in the enterprise.

Grid computing enables the cooperative use of distributed computing and data resources across a wide array of systems, including sharing processing, bandwidth and storage capacity to represent a single virtual system.

Adding grid support to their systems enables IBM partners to support customers who are looking to take advantage of grid computing. For example, in a statement, Chris Fleck, managing director of strategic alliances at Citrix, said, "Citrix and IBM grid computing are a natural fit since Citrix virtualizes the desktop on servers and provides an easy way to allocate resources as needed."

IBM officials said the company is offering its business partners a free 90-minute consultation to help them get their software ready for grid computing. Meanwhile, IBM has existing grid computing efforts ongoing at many commercial enterprises, including Charles Schwab and Co. Inc.

In addition, IBM officials said the company's partners can rely on support from one of four IBM Innovation Centers in Hursley, England; Waltham, Mass.; San Mateo, Calif.; and Chicago. Meanwhile, IBM is using grid technology at its IBM eServer Benchmark Center in Austin, Texas; Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; and Rochester, Minn., where IBM customers can performance test their applications.

The grid partnership announcement follows by two weeks IBM's announcement of its program to support ISVs serving the midmarket and seeking to employ grid technology. IBM announced the IBM Virtual Innovation Center for Hardware, which enables ISVs to access a pool of IBM resources including IBM eServer pSeries servers running AIX.

In addition, through the IBM Virtual Loaner Program, ISVs can access the IBM technology through a secure Web portal.

IBM also two weeks ago announced that 400 ISVs have joined its PartnerWorld Industry Networks for ISVs program, which the company launched in March at its IBM PartnerWorld conference in Las Vegas to help ISVs develop open solutions for various industries.

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