IBM just announced a new feature in its System p machines able to run unmodified x86 32-bit Linux binaries.
To do that IBM is using Transitive technology, QuickTransit, already popular for allowing execution of Sun SPARC binaries on x86 architectures.
Quoting from Transitive official announcement:
Transitive Corporation, the leading provider of software that enables transportability of applications across multiple processor and operating system (OS) pairs, today announced that its innovative QuickTransit technology is being deployed on IBM System p™ servers, allowing IBM customers to run thousands of native Linux/x86 applications on IBM’s POWER-based servers running Linux . A beta version of the software, named IBM System p Application Virtual Environment (System p AVE), was released this month by IBM.
Transitive’s QuickTransit technology serves as the foundation for IBM System p AVE, which is designed to enable Linux/x86 applications to be consolidated with AIX 5L™ and Linux on POWER applications on a single server, thus significantly expanding the software ecosystem for IBM System p servers, and saving software developers valuable time and resources to support the System p architecture…
As Mark Cathcart, Distinguished Engineer at IBM, reveals on his personal blog, IBM plans to release this technology in H2 2007.
Enroll for the IBM System p Application Virtual Environment (pAVE) here.