Böblingen, 24, March 2003 - Students can still apply by May 31, 2003 for the summer practical course of the Extreme Blue™ program at IBM's development center in Böblingen. Starting in the middle of July, selected candidates will work for ten weeks with experienced mentors with IBMs cutting edge technologies. The first application round ends on March 31, 2003.

Twelve participants working in three independent teams develop e-business on demand solutions for the IT industry while they have access to the know-how of the scientists and experts in IBM's worldwide research network.The applicants can choose three challenging projects from the technology areas: virtual Linux server, WebSphere® portal server and digital media.

"In the Extreme Blue program students [male and female] can help to achieve the breakthrough of innovative ideas", Hans Rainer Oehmke, personnel manager of IBM Germany development GmbH explained the characteristic of IBM's summer internship program. "With their ideas, marketable technologies and patent applications get created by the project [teams] in only a few weeks timeframe."

In addition, the Extreme Blue program gives the participants the opportunity to become acquainted with the challenges of the working life in one of the world's largest technology enterprises.

Students of computer science, technical computer science as well as the engineering sciences as long they have the pre-diploma ["Vordiplom", diploma granted for successfully finishing the base study after three semesters] can apply for the Extreme Blue program.

"We are particularly happy about female students applying", said Mr. Oehmke, "because women are proportionally still underrepresented despite their equivalent qualifications in the IT industry".

The Extreme Blue program begins on July 14 and ends on September 26, 2003. The application rounds end on March 31, April 30 as well as on May 31, 2003 respectively. Application forms as well as information about the Extreme Blue program can be found at: http://www.ibm.com/de/entwicklung/extremeblue.

In 1999 the Extreme Blue program took place for the first time. Now over 100 students participate each summer in the worldwide IBM initiative. Besides the development center in Böblingen, there are ten IBM research and development locations from across the world participating in the program. The results of earlier Extreme Blue projects were integrated for example in IBM products or transferred to the Open Source community. Numerous participants [female/male] of the Extreme Blue program work today in different IBM research and development centers.