MOVIES

Munich - During all the years, the NEC unit European Supercomputer Systems (ESS) sold the NEC vector computers of the SX-series. Starting February 1st, NEC finds a new company: NEC High Performance Computing Europe (HPCE) GmbH, which is located in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is a 100% daughter of NEC and sells a new spectrum of HPC products. All the personnel and the experience of ESS will be integrated in this new company. NEC ESS focus was mainly the vector computer series, the NEC SX-6 actually. But on the other hand it sold Linux clusters, as the customers wanted it. The business in Europe grew during the time that it was useful to find a new organisation with a new company. Additionally NEC expects a future business in HPC in Europe. The new HPCE broadens its spectrum of computers, but is based on ESS. Clearly it sells furtheron the NEC SX-6 and its successors. The vector architecture gained new interest with the advent of the powerful Earth Simulator, which is based on the NEC vector processor. Additionally NEC puts the newly announced TX7 into HPCE's portfolio. The TX7-series is based on the Intel Itanium 2 processor. A maximum of 32 processors are integrated in one SMP (symmetrical Multiprocessor) system. On the low-budged side HPCE offers AMD- and Intel-Linux clusters on the 32 bit architecture. Some time ago ESS installed an AMD cluster for the crash simulation at DaimlerChrysler, which was doubled last year. In total there are nearly 400 AMD processors. Thus NEC demonstrated that it can realise big Linux clusters. HPCE will not only sell pure hardware but also services. Beginning with the traditional maintenance, the offer system integration and operation as well as tuning of applications and training. The new organisation opens a flexible and faster reaction an response to the customers wishes. HPCE will soon install offices in most important European countries, where they actually have customers. The new company is directed to the scientific and technical market, where they have the deep knowledge. Thus SAP or Oracle are not their target. http://www.hpce.nec.com Uwe Harms