SCIENCE

PARIS, FRANCE -- Bull Infrastructure & Systems has announced its new line of Escala IL enterprise servers based on the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture, and unveiled 4-way and 16-way models in this product line. Bull will offer these new servers with a comprehensive set of market programs and services called i-scale Attitude. i-scale Attitude gives software developers and early technology adopters a head start with the new 64-bit enterprise computing environment offered by new Escala IL servers based on the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture. The new line of Escala IL servers responds to the needs of the growing generation of highly demanding business applications and infrastructures such as: Windows(R) consolidation and scale-up, large database and data warehousing, ERP/CRM applications, highly secure Internet environments and high-performance computing. Bull will address these areas through targeted partnerships with key software vendors as their applications become generally available. Today's introduction of the Escala IL servers significantly expands the Escala product range and makes it the most open of all 64-bit server ranges in the market, embracing two processor architectures (Escala PL servers based on a RISC architecture and Escala IL based on the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture) and three complementary operating systems (64-bit Linux(R), Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Whistler Server and AIX(R)/AIX 5L(TM)). This provides outstanding freedom of choice for customers and partners. "By introducing the Escala IL servers, Bull materializes its investments in enterprise servers based on standard technology in partnership with Intel. Bull gives a new dimension to the Escala product range, thus enabling us to capture new business areas," says Jean-Philippe Chiarella, vice president, Open Systems, Bull Infrastructure & Systems. "The benefits for our customers and business partners of the Escala IL servers are an excellent price performance ratio, improved freedom of choice and access over time to a large application portfolio targeted to their needs." "Today's announcement from Bull exemplifies our three year joint effort to deliver Itanium-based servers that provide corporations with a choice of software and solutions at lower overall costs and world-class performance," said Mike Fister, vice president of Intel's Enterprise Platform Group. "Bull is providing a breadth of products and working with key technology companies to deliver large-scale computing solutions for many years to come on the Itanium Architecture." Bull Infrastructure and Systems is announcing a full range of servers (from 1 to 16 processors), based on two model ranges: the Escala IL400R (4-way rackable server) and the Escala IL1600 (16-way server). Bull will offer the Escala IL400R with a choice of three supported operating systems: 64-bit Linux(R), Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Whistler Server and AIX 5L(TM). The Escala IL400R server includes comprehensive reliability features such as hot-pluggable, redundant power supplies and fans. The operating systems supported initially by the Escala IL1600R will be Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Whistler Server and AIX 5L(TM). The Escala IL1600R offers reliability and manageability features of enterprise systems, including hot-pluggable system and I/O boards, hot-pluggable and redundant power supplies and fans, self-correcting memory and hardware partitioning (up to 4 independent partitions per system). Bull's i-scale Attitude is a set of pro-active programs that leverages Bull's extensive expertise in the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture arena to create a dynamic 64-bit application development community: -- One program assists software vendors (ISVs) embrace the new Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture and develop and tune their applications for this environment. -- Another program will assist early-adopting customers to make the most advantage of the new technology. Both i-scale Attitude programs provide special financial conditions for acquisition of hardware as well as technical support for porting and testing applications on the Intel(R) Itanium(TM) architecture, delivered through Bull's two Application Solution Centres (ASC). For additional information visit www.us.bull.com