SHORT TAKES

AEA TECHNOLOGY AND SGI COLLABORATE

Mountain View, CALIF. — SGI and AEA Technology announced that they are cooperating to provide best-in-class solutions for fluid flow analysis compatible with the new 64-bit Itanium processors. The solution will take place on the latest generation of SGI computers. The AEA Technology CFX suite of software products for CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and the new generation of SGI computers are based on the Intel Itanium processor. They have been designed to address the demanding needs of researchers and engineers in a range of sectors, including the automotive, aerospace, energy, chemical, rotating machinery, ventilation, and process industries. Itanium is the first product in the Itanium family of processors. It incorporates many leading-edge features specifically designed to address the expanding needs of the workstation user, such as the highest floating-point performance and large memory capabilities.

“Jointly with SGI, AEA Technology is porting and optimizing CFX to the new Itanium processor-based SGI platform so that users can take full advantage of the new SGI technology and the industry-leading efficiency of the CFX software to solve complex fluid flow problems,” said Dr. Georg Scheuerer, vice president, CFX Development for AEA Technology. “The new generation of SGI workstations and servers with an optimized version of CFX for the Itanium and the Linux operating system represents a huge benefit to the CAE market,” said Dr. Ken Jacobsen, vice president of Worldwide Developer Programs for SGI. “This will create completely new opportunities for fluid flow analysis in industry and research that will reinforce our success with the MIPS microprocessors running on the IRIX operating system software.”

SOLIDWORKS CORPORATION ACQUIRES CIMLOGIC

Concord, MASS. — SolidWorks Corporation ( http://www.solidworks.com ) and CIMLOGIC, Inc. ( http://www.cimlogic.com ) announced that SolidWorks has acquired privately-held CIMLOGIC. SolidWorks develops and markets affordable, easy-to-use 3D CAD software solutions for the mainstream market. CIMLOGIC is a leading developer of design and drafting annotation tools for the mechanical and electrical CAD markets. Together, SolidWorks and CIMLOGIC will provide powerful design solutions that incorporate innovative part libraries, enabling users to have instantaneous access to a wide variety of standard components. The acquisition enhances SolidWorks’ mission to deliver the power of 3D to everybody in engineering and manufacturing. CIMLOGIC has been a SolidWorks Gold Partner for four years, providing unique products that demonstrate single-window integration and full associativity with SolidWorks software. Toolbox/SE, CIMLOGIC’s fully integrated design automation and drafting annotation tool for SolidWorks software will now be available for purchase as a fully integrated add-on through the SolidWorks sales channel. The Toolbox/SE product will be renamed to “SolidWorks Toolbox.” Other CIMLOGIC products including Toolbox/MD, Toolbox Professional, and Desktop Companion will also continue to be available through SolidWorks.

“CIMLOGIC provides the most comprehensive and innovative standard component capabilities in the industry,” said Jon Hirschtick, CEO of SolidWorks. “CIMLOGIC has always been an exceptional partner, and has helped us develop several unique capabilities that can be found in SolidWorks software today. For example, CIMLOGIC played an invaluable role in helping us develop the hole wizard functionality, a core feature in SolidWorks software. We believe that the talent and vision of CIMLOGIC’s personnel will continue to result in many more innovative customer solutions in the future.” “SolidWorks and CIMLOGIC have been working together for years. In fact, CIMLOGIC was SolidWorks’ first Solution Partner and first Gold Partner. This acquisition is a logical, natural transition for the relationship between the two companies,” said Bob Noftle, CEO of CIMLOGIC. “Both SolidWorks and CIMLOGIC share a common vision for the future of CAD technology in general, and specifically, the role the Internet will play. Most importantly, both companies are dedicated to helping all MCAD users achieve their design goals.”

MGI ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH ADAPTEC

Campbell, CALIF. — MGI, a leader in visual media software products and infrastructure, announced a worldwide VideoWave licensing agreement with Adaptec, Inc., a global leader in innovative storage solutions. The new agreement, potentially valued for as much as one million dollars, builds on MGI’s existing relationship with Adaptec and results in MGI’s market-leading consumer video software for Windows being included with Adaptec’s AFW-4300 FireWire (IEEE 1394) host adapter card. Historically, the two companies have worked together to ensure hardware/software compatibility, and to help foster the adoption of FireWire. MGI’s PhotoSuite and VideoWave are also bundled with Adaptec’s popular Easy CD Creator.

“In the effort to drive the popularity of consumer video, MGI continues to build close working relationships and strategic partnerships with leading technology providers such as Adaptec,” said Ihor Petelycky, General Manager, Video Products, MGI. “The popularity of VideoWave is being driven in part by the adoption of FireWire as the industry standard for transferring video from a digital camcorder to the computer, and the interest of users to create Web ready videos.” According to research firm Cahners In-Stat Group, some 20 million PCs will ship with IEEE-1394 this year, up sharply from the 7 million units shipped in 1999. The adoption of IEEE-1394 in PCs will continue to spike with unit shipments climbing beyond 50 million by 2003. In-Stat also forecasts that by the year 2004, 76 percent of consumer desktop computers and more than 65 percent of digital video camcorders being shipped, will offer FireWire connectivity. Home video editing and publishing is seen as one of the “killer-apps” for FireWire, so as the standard continues to proliferate, the market for consumer video editing software is expected to grow in tandem. Under the agreement with Adaptec, MGI VideoWave 4 SE is bundled with Adaptec’s reliable AFW-4300 FireWire host adapter and a six- to four-pin FireWire cable. At a suggested retail price of US$94, the combination is an affordable end-to-end solution for capturing, producing, and sharing professional quality videos on the Web. More information is available at http://www.adaptec.com .

ARTICULENT PARTNERS WITH HIGHGROUND SYSTEMS

Hopkinton, MASS. — Articulent Inc., a storage management services provider, announced its partnership with HighGround Systems, the leading developer of storage resource management software. The agreement equips Articulent consulting and analysis practices with Surveyor SRM, a member of HighGround’s Storage Resource Manager product family and the first Web-based storage assessment tool targeted at storage consultancies. Surveyor SRM provides a complete storage infrastructure assessment solution by automating the discovery of enterprise-wide storage resources while collecting key capacity utilization and availability statistics. Surveyor SRM will help Articulent manage the increasing complexities associated with planning and deploying storage network infrastructures, specifically storage area networks (SANs) and network-attached storage (NAS), furthering the breadth and quality of Articulent’s storage management offering.

“Articulent is always looking for ways to improve our excellent client service, and HighGround’s Surveyor SRM offers precisely that opportunity,” said Tom Martin, director ofbusiness development, Articulent. “Surveyor SRM gives Articulent a more accurate picture of the storage environment, allowing for the very best assessment of storage needs for any company.” “We’re pleased to be partnering with Articulent in their efforts to deliver increasingly valuable consulting services to their customer base,” said Geoff Hogan, director of channel partner management at HighGround. “The combination of HighGround’s Surveyor SRM assessment tool and Articulent’s solid consulting experience demystifies the SAN/NAS planning, migration and implementation dilemma and offers an unprecedented level of expertise to the storage marketplace.” For more information, please visit http://www.articulent.com or http://www.highground.com .

STORNET AND LEGATO EXTEND PARTNERSHIP

Englewood, COLO. — StorNet, Inc., a leading provider of networked storage services, and Legato Systems, Inc., a leader in enterprise storage management software, announced that they have extended their relationship under Legato’s Premier Enterprise Solution Partnership program to add new networked storage services and products designed for SAN and NAS environments. Under the terms of the agreement, StorNet will integrate Legato NetWorker 6.0, Legato Celestra and Legato Cluster Enterprise products into its suite of storage area network (SAN) solutions for server-free and LAN-free backup. Additionally, the companies will provide NDMP-based data protection services to protect Network Appliance and other filers in network-attached storage (NAS) environments.

“NetWorker 6.0 offers significant improvements in its indexing technology, which increases performance and improves scalability. And the additional cluster support provides even higher levels of data availability. These improvements combined with NDMP support, Windows 2000 and LINUX allow our customers to extend their Legato protection investments to more platforms and reduce their overhead costs,” said Derek Gamradt, VP of Technology for StorNet. “We are very pleased with the centralized and simplified management and greater application and network access inherent in this release.” Legato NetWorker 6.0 is a powerful data protection solution designed to meet the data intensive needs of eBusiness enterprises and service providers. NetWorker 6.0 delivers the industry’s leading backup and restore performance, resiliency, centralized and simplified management and provides greater application and network access.

APPLIED MICROSYSTEMS, QNX TEAM UP

Redmond, WASH. — As part of their commitment to support developers of high-end communications systems, Applied Microsystems Corp. and QNX Software Systems today announced that Applied’s CodeTEST hardware and software in-circuit tools are being ported to the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system (RTOS). Designed for high-availability 7×24 systems, QNX Neutrino offers a dynamically upgradeable architecture and MMU (memory management unit) protection for all applications, drivers, and OS modules. These features, together with built-in support for SMP (symmetric multi-processing) and fault-tolerant networking, are helping QNX Neutrino gain popularity among developers of high-speed networking equipment.

CodeTEST is a member of Applied’s CodeOPTIX family of high-level software visibility tools. CodeTEST offers software development teams much-needed gains in quality and productivity with software test and analysis methods that migrate through each stage of software development. With common file formats for three test and analysis environments – native, software-target based, and hardware-assisted target – CodeTEST becomes the basis for a coherent, integrated test methodology. “Our customers are looking for visibility into their systems, and for tools that will help them optimize both reliability and performance,” said Linda Campbell, vice president of strategic alliances at QNX. “CodeTEST, in combination with QNX Neutrino’s fault-tolerant architecture and proven real-time capabilities, can give them exactly what they need.” “QNX Neutrino is one of the leading operating systems in networking equipment and Internet appliances,” said Steve Dearden, vice president of marketing for Applied’s High-Speed Networking Unit. “CodeTEST lets developers deliver applications that fulfill the reliability and performance capabilities of the QNX operating system.”

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