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In the coming days IBM is set to announce a new initiative called "Blue Cloud," which marks the first time IBM will deliver a commercial cloud computing offering. This first offering will use a combination of hardware and software designed to deliver more computing power from the data center based on customer demand.

The name “Blue Cloud” is a play on IBM's corporate nickname "Big Blue" and "cloud computing," the trend by Internet powerhouses to array huge numbers of computers in centralized data centers to deliver Web-based applications to users, rather than making their customers run such programs on their local machines.

The basic idea of cloud computers is to make corporate data centers operate more like the Internet by enabling computing to be spread across a large, distributed pool of computers, rather than on local machines or remote server farms. This lets organizations switch to resources to where they are needed, virtually gaining access to computers and storage on demand. The older approach of running individual applications on separate servers means as little as 10 percent of a stand-alone computer's capacity is used.

IBM, which pioneered centralized data centers decades ago, is looking to arm its customers with technology similar to what it has long offered in the form of hosted services for clients who rely on IBM to operate their data centers for them. It now wants to help customers build data centers for themselves composed of thousands of low-cost personal computers, equipping them with the data-crunching power of consumer Internet giants Google Inc , Microsoft Corp , Yahoo Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

Dennis Quan, the chief technology officer for IBM's High Performance on Demand Solutions division, said that IBM would target any customers that want to get more computing power from a data center, but especially those enterprises running Web 2.0 applications, such as social networking, blogs, search, and open collaboration content.

In its initial phase, IBM plans to make 200 IBM researchers available to work with clients, which may include both businesses large and small, university research centers as well as government agencies.

"We think this is a big move in the market and we are going to make a big move behind it," said Bill Zeitler, the executive in charge of IBM's hardware business. Zeitler declined to say how much revenue its cloud computing strategy might produce, saying IBM was still sizing up prospects.

The first products of the program are set to be available in spring of 2008, IBM said.