Welcome to the IBM Break Free World Tour.

Welcome to the IBM Break Free World Tour. This interactive series includes full- and half-day events and supersized forums in nearby locations. Each event gives you a broad understanding of how IBM improves IT economics through choice, predictability, and innovation — a highly competitive solution, especially when compared to Oracle. Stop, Think and Save — our easy 3-step process can save you up to 50% on applicable IT costs when moving to IBM software and systems.

Specifics You’ll Learn At Our Break Free World Tour event.

Increased Savings

Using IBM can save you:

• Up to 40% on hardware and energy costs¹
• Up to 55% on administrative costs¹
• Up to 66% on database software list price²
• Up to 83% on high-performance data warehouse costs³
• Pricing models designed to let you pay for only what you need

Greater Flexibility

• Up to 98% Oracle PL/SQL — supported⁴
• Capacity on demand across System z ® and Power® Systems
• IBM allows third-party support of systems, unlike Oracle⁵
• Strong roadmaps for leading ISVs such as SAP
• Open source, industry standards and application compatibility
• Enterprise license options allow a choice in products
• Flexible support coverage in year 1 and beyond

At IBM, we’re known for providing choice in software (database and middleware), systems and virtualization technologies — to optimize systems for particular analytics and transactional workloads along with infrastructure for data center consolidation or cloud delivery. Plus, we spend $6 billion a year in R&D and have been ranked #1 in patents 19 years in a row. Given today’s IT and economic environment, this is the kind of partner you need moving forward to align your IT strategy with your business strategy.

Why spend more money to innovate — just choose IBM.

¹ Based on real customer experiences of 55+ WebSphere Virtual Enterprise Value Assessments (www.sageza.com/available/Snapshot/StratSN%204-1-08%20IBM%20WSVE.pdf). All client examples cited or described are presented as illustrations of the manner in which some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual client configurations and conditions.

² COST based on publicly available U.S. info on 3/28/2011 for IBM DB2 Advanced Enterprise Edition + Oracle software with comparable capabilities. For software license and subscription support for the first 12 months. Actual prices may vary based on applicable volume discounts. For price comparison. Oracle Global pricing, for US prices -- Oracle Technology Global Price List; IBM Global catalogue, for US prices -- DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition

³ HP Full Rack and a full rack of Netezza TwinFin. The cost to acquire Netezza can be as low as 1/6 of Exadata if a client is acquiring new Oracle database licenses and as low as 1/2 if using existing Oracle database licenses. Actual prices may vary based on applicable volume discounts. For price comparison. Oracle Global pricing, for US prices -- Oracle Technology Global Price List IBM Global catalogue, for US prices -- DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition.

⁴ Based on internal tests and reported client experience from June 30, 2010 through, July 20, 2011.

⁵ Source: (http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/hardware-systems-support-policies-069182.pdf) (http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/19599/oracle-changes-hardware-technical-support-policy).