Product Watch: SGI dmSDK Kit For Open Source. RackLogic Rolls out High-Density Servers. AMD Intros New Duron.

January 12, 2001

SHORT TAKES

SGI dmSDK KIT NOW AVAILABLE TO OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY

Mountain view, CA — SGI (NYSE: SGI), a leading provider of solutions for the digital media industry, today announced that the source code for its digital media software development kit (dmSDK) for the Linux(R) operating environment is now available to the open source community. The dmSDK toolkit shortens the time required to create digital media applications across the SGI(TM) product line by allowing SGI software partners to write to a single application programming interface (API). The dmSDK source code is now available for download from SGI’s open source developer Web site at http://www.sgi.com/developers/oss/ .

dmSDK provides Linux developers with a proven, cross-platform digital media API and is a key enabler allowing digital media developers to deliver applications for this increasing popular operating system. The cross-platform capability of dmSDK creates an easy bridge for current SGI developers wanting to leverage their IRIX(R) operating system software development to bring Linux products to market quickly.

“The dual-platform capability of dmSDK is a very positive step toward our ability to develop applications that are IRIX and Linux cross-platform capable,” said Pierre Bouchard, director of Product Development, Discreet.

“Software companies are able to easily have similar applications running on IRIX and Linux because dmSDK provides a common interface,” said Andy Hendrickson, director of Systems Development, Industrial Light & Magic. “That ability allows companies to more quickly and thoroughly take advantage of new features in hardware as they’re introduced.”

The dmSDK source code release demonstrates SGI’s continuing commitment to the open source community and to providing hardware and software technologies relevant to graphics and digital media developers. Related open source projects from SGI include Open Inventor(TM), an industry-standard toolkit for high-level 3D graphics, and the OpenGL(R) Sample Implementation, a reference codebase used as the basis for most vendors OpenGL graphics drivers. SGI will continue working with open source developers to strengthen the graphics and digital media capabilities of Linux.

dmSDK has been adopted by the Khronos Special Interest Group (SIG) as the basis for the digital media component of the proposed OpenML(TM) standard, together with OpenGL for the graphics component. OpenML will enable application developers to easily integrate audio, video and graphics content across a wide range of platforms.

RACKLOGIC ROLLS OUT ULTRA HIGH DENSITY SERVERS

RackLogic has just announced large-scale production availability of its (patent pending) RackDensity line of ultra-high density servers. It packs four complete and independent server nodes, each with its own state-of-the-art Pentium III processor, into a single 1U enclosure, so that up to 160 servers can fit into an industry-standard 19″ rack. Pricing for a RackDensity 4-node system starts at $3999, which amounts to $1000 per server.

AMD INTRODUCES FASTER BARGAIN CHIP

San Jose, CA — Locked in a supercharged race with giant rival Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is introducing a speedier new version of its Duron chip for personal computers. Though AMD began shipping the 850-megahertz Duron to customers in December, the company planned officially to show off the new chip’s specifications Monday, less than a week after Intel introduced its new 800-megahertz Celeron chip. Duron and Celeron are billed as bargain alternatives to AMD’s Athlon and Intel’s Pentium high-speed processors.

The new Duron incorporates a 200-megahertz system bus, which speeds up communication with a computer’s main memory, and costs $149 when purchased in a batch of 1,000, said Linda Kohout, a Duron marketing manager. The 800-megahertz Celeron incorporates a 100-megahertz system bus, and costs about $170 if bought in a batch of 1,000.

Martin Reynolds, a research fellow at Gartner Dataquest, said some AMD chips arguably outperform Intel’s, but Intel will still dominate the $25 billion processor market because of its sheer size and because its brand is stronger in the corporate world.

http://www.amd.com

http://www.intel.com

MTI TECHNOLOGY’S NEW VIVANT V35

Anaheim, CA — MTI Technology Corp, a provider of storage and business solutions, today announced the introduction of the MTI Vivant V35 storage server for the enterprise Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS). The MTI Vivant V35 system offers the highest performance and capacity in the Vivant product line to satisfy the demands of data-intensive applications that require vast amounts of storage.

The MTI Vivant family is one of the industry’s first integrated SAN and NAS solutions to be classified as a “Disaster Tolerant Disk System Plus” (DTDS+) by the RAID Advisory Board (RAB). Using a high-density design, the MTI Vivant V35 combines eight Fibre Channel RAID I/O engines and serves up to 12TB of SAN/NAS storage to a multiple number of application servers. With the company’s proprietary DataShield technology the V35 can easily be configured so that any amount of the 12TB can be accessed as NFS or CIFS (NAS) storage over Gigabit Ethernet.

MTI is currently accepting orders for the MTI Vivant V35 integrated SAN and NAS solution. Prices for the minimum configuration start under $800,000 for the MTI Vivant V35. The MTI Vivant V35 is compatible with open systems such as UNIX, HP, Sun and Windows NT/2000. The company expects the product to be available by the end of February 2001.

Web site: http://www.mti.com

NEW STK RELEASE BOOSTS SOFTWARE’S SPEED AND FLEXIBILITY

Malvern, PA — The software that has been improving the efficiency of the aerospace industry for the past 12 years just got better. With today’s release of Satellite Tool Kit(R) (STK) version 4.2, Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI) provides the fastest and most flexible version of its core software product to date. STK 4.2 offers accelerated “access” calculations, improved 2-D and 3-D graphics, and new flexible licensing options.

Streamlined STK access calculations — mathematical formulas that compute when two or more objects can see each other — cut the time needed to perform important aerospace analysis tasks such as station acquisition/scheduling, multi-hop analysis, communication link calculations, coverage analysis, and dilution of precision computations. Additionally, 2-D and 3-D graphics now demonstrate significant load and refresh enhancements. Depending on the task and the computer configuration used, STK 4.2 performs two to 10 times faster than before.

Web site: http://www.stk.com

GADZOOX NETWORKS HERALDS NEW ERA IN SANS WITH AXXESS SAN APPLIANCE

San Jose, CA — Gadzoox Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZOOX), a supplier of intelligent storage networking products, today announced the general availability of its Axxess(TM) Storage Area Network (SAN) Appliance products. The Axxess SAN Appliance enables information-technology (IT) professionals, SAN resellers, and manufacturers to save money and time by providing a solution that blends disparate vendors’ storage systems into a single, scalable, and interoperable Networked Storage Pool (NSP) solution.

The Axxess SAN Appliance provides a compelling return on investment (ROI) for companies finding themselves with an ad-hoc storage environment that continues to grow. Leading industry analyst firms have determined that the average annual cost of managing storage devices can be 4-8 times the initial cost of the storage device itself. The Axxess SAN Appliance reflects Gadzoox Networks’ commitment to “Freedom of Storage” through its cost and time saving benefits, and pooling and interoperability features.

Web site: http://www.gadzoox.com

SMARTDISK INTRODUCES VST FIRERAID SOFTWARE

San Francisco, CA — SmartDisk Corporation (Nasdaq:SMDK), a leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of advanced consumer electronics products, today introduced VST FireRAID(TM), a software tool that allows users to use two or more of its external hard drives together to create a fast, reliable desktop Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) array.

SmartDisk’s VST FireRAID software enables digital video professionals, musicians, and others who use large, data-intensive applications to link multiple external drives together to expand storage capabilities and increase digital data transfer rates by up to three times. The software provides professionals with a quick and easy, low-cost solution for managing and editing vast amounts of digital video, music and data on reliable SmartDisk external drives instead of on their personal computers’ built-in drives. Designed for use with Macintosh computers, VST FireRAID works with the complete line of SmartDisk’s award-winning FireWire and USB/FireWire full-height and slim, portable drives, which are available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 75GB.

Web sites at http://www.smartdisk.com or http://www.vsttech.com .

ANSOFT ANNOUNCES HFSS VERSION 8.0

Pittsburgh, CA — Ansoft announced version 8.0 of the Ansoft High Frequency Structure Simulator (Ansoft HFSS). Ansoft HFSS is a full-wave finite element electromagnetic (EM) simulator that enables engineers to design three-dimensional (3D) high-frequency structures such as connectors, IC packages, and antennas found in cellular telephones, broadband communications systems, and microwave circuits.

Technology leaders like Nortel, Lucent, and Cisco already use Ansoft HFSS to design broadband communications circuits and components. Now those companies can include models generated by HFSS for their physical layer transient simulations of Gigabit Ethernet IC packages, boards and connectors; optoelectronic devices for broadband fiber modulators, receivers, and routers; and electronic devices for signal conversion in hybrid fiber-coax systems.

“Full-Wave Spice is our latest technological innovation,” said Dr. Zoltan Cendes, Ansoft’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer. “For the first time ever, full-wave electromagnetic field solvers can produce accurate broadband SPICE models for high-speed interconnects. Our Full-Wave Spice technology enables users to design components while taking gigahertz-frequency effects into account.”

Web site: http://www.ansoft.com

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