The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : IBM Unveils Grand Design to Link Its Platforms on Internet

International Business Machines Corp., seeking to capture a major slice of the Internet market, Tuesday unveiled a broad array of software and services to tap the power of the company’s major computer platforms.

The new offerings mark a major step in the development of the Internet by unlocking the vast amounts of data stored on IBM-built computers, which the company estimates houses up to two-thirds of all the world’s corporate computer data.

IBM said it will use software designed to run on the global computer network as a kind of universal language to more closely link its PCs, workstations, minicomputers and mainframes.

The announcements also represented new steps by Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM to open its computer systems to run software from competing companies such as Microsoft Corp.

“Customers of all sizes are getting connected to the Internet and looking for novel ways to use it,” said Nicholas Donofrio of IBM’s server group.

“Now it’s time to move beyond the exploratory stage. . . . The hottest content for the Internet is the content our customers already have on their computing systems,” he said.