It was the successor of the RS/6000 line, and predecessor of the IBM Power Systems server series.

The first System p server line was named the eServer pSeries in 2000 as part of the e-Server branding initiative.

In 2007, after the introduction of the POWER6 processor models, the last rename under the System p brand dropped the p (numbered) designation.

In addition, during the SuperComputing 2007 (SC07) conference in Reno, IBM introduced a new POWER6-based System p 575 with 32 POWER6 cores at 4.7 GHz and up to 256 GB of RAM with water cooling.

IBM's own UNIX variant, AIX is not supported since the OpenPower servers are not licensed for this operating system.