With the introduction of the PRIMERGY BX300 mono server blade, Fujitsu Siemens Computers is making outstanding reliability, performance and connectivity available to IT managers for a broad range of application areas. The exceptional performance and value of the BX300 was highlighted by a recent SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark, making it ideal for Web servers, terminal server farms, and particularly in the datacentre. The mono server blade, designed for the BX300 blade server chassis, is now available for prices starting at 1690 euro each in Germany (excl. VAT).

NEC Corporation has announced the worldwide launch and availability of the SX series model "SX-8", the world's most powerful vector supercomputer with a peak processing performance of 65TFLOPS (TFLOPS: one trillion floating point operations per second).

After the announcement of the Cray XD1 the next supercomputer is on the list to be sold as a product, the XT3 based on Sandias Red Storm. The XT3 is the successor of the legendary Cray T3D and Cray T3E and is based on the AMD Opteron. It is starting in the price range of 1 million US$. A 6 cabinets system with 548 processors and 14 service PEs has a peak performance of 2.6 TeraFlop/s, it can be extended to an open end of peak performance.

A team of French researchers from the Central Office for Information Systems Security (DCSSI) and the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin en Yvelines has computed a collision for "SHA-0" code, a hash algorithm developed in the 1990s by the National Security Agency. The computation was performed on TeraNova, a supercomputer clustering Bull NovaScale servers. TeraNova demonstrated its power and reliability by breaking SHA-0 in three weeks and 80,000 CPU hours.

Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (Nasdaq NM: CRAY) today reported that it has begun shipping the Cray XT3™ supercomputer, an industry standard massively parallel processing (MPP) system that strongly advances the record-setting scalability and sustained application performance of the renowned Cray T3D™ and Cray T3E systems. U.S. list pricing for the Cray XT3 supercomputer begins at about $2 million.

There’s a new world heavyweight supercomputer coming to town, courtesy of the Department of Energy. BlueGene/L is the latest jewel in DOE's crown of high-performance computers that dates back to the agency's formation during the Cold War. At present, five of the world’s top 10 fastest computers are hard at work at DOE facilities. Delivery of BlueGene/L at the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory should begin this November.

ClearSpeed Technology has announced details of its first commercial microprocessor, the CSX600. In a presentation at the Fall Processor Forum in San Jose, California, one of the world's key semiconductor industry conferences, the company will be presenting performance data showing the new processor to be the highest performing product of its kind. The new chip, which delivers up to 50 GFLOPS for just 5 watts power consumption, is expected to become available by the end of Q1 2005.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has released its PRIMERGY S2 rack and tower servers, which will offer IT managers greater flexibility and performance for their server farms, while ensuring 'peace of mind’ by protecting application investment and providing easier server management.

OptimaNumerics, specialized in high performance technical and scientific computing software, has introduced OptimaNumerics Libraries for IBM eServer BladeCenter JS20, providing customers with the highest performance numerical software tools to enable efficient technical and scientific computations.

Brocade Communications Systems a provider of Storage Area Network (SAN) infrastructure solutions, has introduced an expanded set of tools, utilities, and educational offerings designed to help its customers and partners to better design, administer, and manage SANs. Led by Brocade SAN Health, a powerful and innovative new SAN management tool that Brocade is providing free of charge to its customers and partners, these new offerings combine technical depth with practical advice on how to optimize new and existing SANs.

Silicon Graphics has announced results for its first fiscal quarter which ended September 24, 2004. Revenue for the first quarter was $175 million, in line with the preliminary results announced October 5, 2004. Gross margin from continuing operations was 35.8% compared with 40.1% in the same quarter one year ago. SGI's first-quarter operating loss from continuing operations was $27 million, compared with an operating loss of $44 million for the first quarter fiscal 2004. The first-quarter net loss was $28 million or $0.11 per share, compared with a net loss of $48 million or $0.23 per share one year ago.

Cray Inc.'s Board of Directors has elected Stephen C. Richards as a member of the Board. He will serve on the Board's Audit Committee.

Cray and Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC) established a collaboration to exploit the scalable designs of LSTC's LS-DYNA engineering software and Cray's new Cray XD1 supercomputer. Cray and LSTC are aggressively optimizing the Cray communications libraries to enable LS-DYNA to fully exploit the scalability and performance of the Cray XD1 system's innovative interconnect technology.

IBM announced the early success of opening the IBM eServer BladeCenter specification and new models packed with technology breakthroughs to further extend the system's enterprise capabilities. Forty-nine companies have received the BladeCenter open specification since Intel and IBM's joint announcement on September 2.