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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- SGI announced the release of the SGI(R) Origin(R) 350 midrange technical server, which caps the company's recent series of high-productivity servers and supercomputers that are addressing the most complex computing challenges. Based on the signature SGI(R) NUMAflex(TM) global shared-memory architecture, the SGI Origin 350 system delivers sustained multidimensional performance in compact and affordable rack-mount configurations that easily scale to meet the complexity of technical challenges posed over time. SGI also reported a favorable response to its expanded server and supercomputer offering with recent wins in markets including government and defense, manufacturing, sciences, energy and broadcast. Over the past five months, SGI has been rapidly executing an aggressive strategy to meet demands for advanced workflow, access to terascale data and global collaboration. "The fact that we're hitting the mark with these products is not a surprise. It confirms feedback from customers in the HPC community that they need access -- now -- to systems dedicated to solving technical problems," said Dave Parry, senior vice president and general manager of SGI's Server and Platform Group. "We have been aggressively honing our products and creating solutions to address head-on the ever-growing challenges that scientists, researchers and engineers face. And we are far from done." In November 2002, the company made supercomputing more deployable by expanding its flagship SGI Origin 3000 line of systems with a model that packs four times the computational density of previous configurations into a single industry-standard rack. In January, SGI introduced the SGI Altix 3000 family of servers and superclusters based on Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors that also brought the Linux(R) operating system to the company's scalable systems. Today the company rounds out its new line of technical servers custom-designed to deliver extremely powerful yet cost-effective systems. Highly Productive, Highly Affordable SGI Origin 350 technical servers expand the modular scalability capabilities of SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 with new big-bandwidth options and customized configurations that allow users to deploy the optimal solution for the least amount of cost and space. Empowered by the NUMAflex architecture, SGI Origin 350 can be expanded modularly from a stand-alone, two-processor technical server to an HPC workhorse with up to 32 processors, 64GB of memory and 62 PCI-X slots. With NUMAflex, users get the configurations that best meet their particular applications' demanding requirements. The big-data-handling capabilities of SGI Origin 350 make it ideal for applications with high bandwidth requirements in minimal space. In government and defense markets, the customized configurations and small footprint of SGI Origin 350 make it possible to deploy a complete end-to-end ground station (including server components for data capture, computation, and product output; archive recorders; and a storage area network with switches) all in a single rack. The low power consumption and cooling requirements make SGI Origin 350 an ideal choice for mobile installations for applications ranging from military operations to broadcast media serving. Broadcast stations will select SGI Origin 350 when they need the best solution for high-bandwidth media serving, file serving or digital infrastructure solutions. The low price point, scalability and compact form factor of SGI Origin 350 will continue to make SGI a strong choice for sustained HPC application performance in the technical midrange. The SGI(R) IRGO(TM) workflow- optimization features of the IRIX(R) operating system help users shorten time to solution, and SGI Origin 350 scales easily to meet the demands of increasingly complex problems in manufacturing, energy and the sciences. Meeting the Most Demanding Criteria Within this same brief time frame, SGI(R) servers, supercomputers and superclusters, with the complement of SGI(R) Onyx(R) advanced visualization systems and data management solutions, have received astute recognition from the most demanding U.S. government agencies, national laboratories and research centers worldwide. Recent endorsements of its unique capability include the following: -- As previously announced, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) awarded SGI a $26 million contract to provide DoD researchers with the added processing power and shared memory to compute and analyze increasingly complex mission-critical problems and keep the DoD HPCMP at the forefront of advanced high-performance computing. -- During its debut at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2003, SGI Altix 3000 received "Best of Show" honors for product excellence. -- Using Origin 3000 systems, the University of Waterloo's School of Computer Science's RAPTOR Program won first place in the Biennial Protein-Structure-Prediction Competition. -- As previously announced, Germany's Waterway Engineering and Research Institute (BAW) selected approximately euro 3 million (roughly $3.2 million U.S.) worth of SGI technology to meet challenges in future numerical simulation projects. SGI Origin 3000 systems replaced BAW's former vector-based supercomputer system, Cray SV1(TM), and excelled over other competitors in benchmark performance and the best price/performance value.