IBM Corp. has pulled the curtains back on a new generation of System x machines in what is poised to be the last major refresh for the portfolio before it’s transferred to Lenovo Group Ltd. along with the rest of the enterprise stalwart’s x86 product lines as part of a $2.3 billion selloff  announced in January.  The Chinese electronics giant had previously acquired Big Blue’s personal computing business for $1.75 billion.

The M5 lineup is based on the latest Xeon E5-2600 v3 processor series that Intel Corp. introduced at its annual customer conference in San Francisco on Monday, which the chipmaker pegs as up to three times speedier than its predecessor. The new servers likewise boast major performance improvements over the previous generation System x family, with IBM claiming that the machines can run enterprise applications up to 133 percent faster and deliver as much as 61 percent more horsepower for virtual environments.

Even more notable than the performance enhancements are the software capabilities included in the M5 series. All of the new servers contain an upgraded version of IBM’s Trusted Platform Module that blocks unauthorized firmware modifications and provides the option of enabling automatic encryption of hard drives. The added security measures are seemingly aimed at reassuring customers that their data will remain protected after the System X portfolio passes to Lenovo.

Nonetheless, U.S. regulators have given the go-ahead to the deal, which will  position the manufacturer to better compete in the enterprise while enabling IBM to refocus on more lucrative areas such as the hybrid cloud. And that’s exactly what the company is doing. Hot on the heels of introducing the M5 series, Big Blue is rolling out a comprehensive suite of services for managing data in geographically distributed environments spanning on-premise infrastructure and public clouds.

The crown jewel of the lineup is a new version of the file transfer platform that the company obtained through the  acquisition of file migration specialist Aspera Inc. last December featuring a slew of value-added add-ons, including a new monitoring capability that provides information on usage patterns, transfer performance and service levels. The tool is joined by a management solution that IBM says automatically determines migration speeds based on the load, network performance and other conditions in order to optimize the transfer process while reducing the amount of manual work involved.

To top it off, Big Blue has also exposed new application interfaces aimed at making it easier to broadcast real-time video such as sports streams across large distances and introduced Mac and mobile clients for Aspera Drive, a cloud locker tailored to meet the needs of creative teams. The company also took the opportunity to add a few conveniences, most notably direct integration with PowerPoint and automatic verification of video against the ADI and DPP broadcasting quality standards.

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