ClusterVision has successfully supplied and fully installed a dual procurement for Compute and Storage clusters for a new university customer. The 270 AMD Opteron processor compute cluster with Myrinet interconnect and the 40TB storage cluster were ordered from ClusterVision following a competitive tender procedure.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has introduced the Primergy TX150 S3, a new mono processor tower server designed for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as the branch offices of larger companies. Based on Intel's latest Pentium and Celeron technology, this entry-level server offers the performance necessary for a variety of functions, including print, file and Web server applications. With advanced PC3200 DDR1 SDRAM memory technology, the new model is remarkably dependable. The choice between U320 SCSI and SATA hard disk drive technology, and six PCI slots and the optional hot-plug redundant power supply make it the most expandable mono processor server on the market. The new Primergy TX150 S3 is now available for prices starting at 1125,- euro, e.g. Germany, without tax.

Cray Inc. has won an order to deliver one of the world's most powerful supercomputers to the computing centre for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This order is part of a multi-order award with an aggregate value of over $23 million that Cray has received from the DoD HPC Modernization Programme.

Silicon Graphics has announced results for its second fiscal quarter, which ended December 24, 2004. Revenue for the quarter was $223 million, compared with $175 million for the first quarter ended September 24, 2004. Gross margin was 37.5% in the second quarter, up from 35.9% in the first quarter. SGI's second-quarter operating loss from continuing operations was $9 million, compared with an operating loss of $26 million in the first quarter. The second-quarter net loss from continuing operations was $11 million or $0.04 per share, compared with a net loss of $28 million or $0.11 per share last quarter.

The next step in Sun Microsystems' strategy to help make it easier for customers to migrate from proprietary technology, protect existing storage investments and simplify data management is the introduction of the ability for the Sun StorEdge 9990 system to virtualize EMC storage. This further enhances the Sun StorEdge family of products, which includes the Sun StorEdge 6920 system, a modular storage array that brings virtualization capabilities to the mid-tier market.

A global utility supercomputing joint venture between a national telephone company and the makers of Gollum is one highlight of the New Zealand communications technology companies coming to CeBIT as part of the New Zealand New Thinking stand at the show.

In January I had the chance to talk to Jean Gonnord, who is the Programme Director for Numerical Simulation & Computer Sciences at CEA/DAM - the French Nuclear Agency. CEA/DAM (the Military Application Direction) of the CEA has selected Bull to provide a supercomputer with a peak performance higher than 60 TeraFlop/s. Jean Gonnord discussed the acquisition process, the decision process and further important reasons like open source software that led to the choice of the Bull supercomputer.

To better understand the acquisition of the powerful Bull supercomputer, based on Intel Itanium - Montecito processors - we hereby offer a short description of CEA. It is a key player in technological research.

The University of British Columbia in Canada, UVic, is helping to create the world's largest international computer Grid project, giving the university's particle physicists access to more power than most supercomputers could ever deliver. UVic's current Grid, GridX1, allows particle physicists easy access to computing power by linking numerous large research computer sites across Canada.

"Panta Rei” - everything is in a state of flux - and knowledge is based on the perception of the senses. Heraclitus of Ephesus (circa 500BC). The HPC Challenge benchmark is providing a new in-depth analysis of system performance. To retain the competitive sporting spirit of the Top500 list, I propose the HPCC fraternity adopt the Olympiad medal convention. The top system is awarded a Gold medal, the 2nd Silver and 3rd Bronze for each benchmark group. The system with the largest number of Gold medals can be declared the winner. (Chris Lazou)

Cray reported that it has won new advance orders with an aggregate value of approximately $9 million from unnamed European and Asia-Pacific customers for Cray X1E supercomputer systems. The two systems are scheduled to be installed in the first half of 2005.

Etnus, the provider of the most advanced debugger on Linux and UNIX, has announced that TotalView, chosen as the debugger for the new Cray XT3 supercomputer product line, is immediately available for these systems.

George Conrades, 65, will become Executive Chairman of Akamai, effective April 1, 2005, the sixth anniversary of his tenure as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The Akamai Board of Directors has elected Paul Sagan, 45, currently President of Akamai, to succeed Conrades as CEO. Sagan, who will continue to hold the title of President, also was elected to the company's Board of Directors, which has been expanded to 10 members.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers is celebrating: it was 25 years ago when the universal transaction monitor (UTM) went live. Back in January 1980, the first customer put version 1.0 into operation on a then state-of-the-art Siemens 7.755 mainframe with 2 MB main memory. In those days, around 15 transactions could be processed per second. Today, openUTM middleware as it’s now called, also runs on Solaris, Windows, Linux and HP-UX and manages 10,000 transactions per second on only one system.

The Nuremberg, Germany-based norisbank AG has commissioned Fujitsu Siemens Computers to optimize the crucial on-line storage network of its KORDOBA banking system. In doing so, norisbank wants to improve performance and 24x7 data availability as well as to improve the cost-effectiveness of its storage systems.

Sun Microsystems Inc., has reported results for its fiscal second quarter, which ended December 26, 2004. Revenues for the second quarter were $2.843 billion, a decrease of 1.6 percent as compared with $2.888 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2004. Total gross margin as a percent of revenues was 42.3 percent, an increase of 0.5 percentage points as compared with the second quarter of fiscal 2004.

Visual Numerics, a provider of numerical analysis and visualization software, has promoted Philip Fraher to president and chief executive officer of the company. Prior to this new appointment, Fraher was the chief operating officer for Visual Numerics during a period of significant growth and expansion.

IBM has announced fourth-quarter 2004 diluted earnings per common share of $1.81 from continuing operations as reported, compared with diluted earnings of $1.56 per share in the same period of 2003, an increase of 16 percent. Fourth-quarter income from continuing operations was $3.1 billion compared with $2.7 billion a year ago, an increase of 12 percent. Revenues from continuing operations for the fourth quarter were $27.7 billion, up 7 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2003 revenues of $25.9 billion, and up 18 percent sequentially from $23.4 billion in the third quarter of this year.