For the Record: Miscellaneous HPC News and Notes: 12 Items

NEWS BRIEFS

  
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UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH TEAMS WINS MANNHEIM SUPARCUP '93
  Munich, Germany -- Clemens Cap and Volker Strumpen of the University of
Zurich, Switzerland, are the winners of the Mannheim SuParCup '93, an
international competition in parallel computing.
  The team used 642 heterogeneous workstations in five continents connected
via the Internet to compare DNA sequences.
  The second prize was won by a team from the German research institute GMD
for a widely portable parallelization of a weather prediction code with
150,000 lines.
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NOVELL TO REPURCHASE 11.1 MILLION SHARES OF COMMON STOCK
  Provo, Utah -- Novell Inc. announced that its board of directors approved a
share repurchase program to purchase up to 11.1 million shares of Novell
common stock in the open market as conditions warrant.
  Any shares purchased under the program will offset the 11.1 million shares
issued to acquire Unix System Laboratories. The USL acquisition was completed
on Monday, June 14.
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VISUAL NUMERICS SUBSIDIARY SHIPPING PV-WAVE ADVANTAGE
  Munich, Germany -- IMSL Germany GmbH in Dusseldorf, a division of Visual
Numerics, said it is shipping PV-Wave Advantage.
  The new software combines the IMSL C/Math and C/Stat libraries with PV-Wave
Command Language.
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SWANSON ANALYSIS WINS 1993 CAD/CAM LEADER AWARD
  Houston, Pa. -- Swanson Analysis Systems said it has won a 1993 CAD/CAM
Leader Award from Machine Design magazine.
  Swanson's Ansys Revision 5.0 won in the category of "Best Finite-Element
Analysis Software for Workstations" for the third year in a row.
  The Machine Design article described Swanson as "an innovator in computer
software technology" and "a developer of advanced methods for applied
mechanics."
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IBM, INTEL FOUNDING MEMBERS OF MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE GROUP
  La Napoule, France -- A group of companies from around the world Wednesday
announced the formation of a group that will work to promote the design and
use of collaborative multimedia applications.
  Such applications allow people who cannot meet face to face to work
together at their workstations -- from any point on the globe.
  The seven founding companies include: BT, France Telecom, Deutsche
Bundespost Telekom, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Northern Telecom, and Telstra
Corp. Ltd.
  The group has invited other companies to join with it in discussing the
service and technical requirements for making its vision a reality.
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MERCURY WINS $10 MILLION CONTRACT FOR MULTIPROCESSORS
  Chelmsford, Mass. -- Mercury Computer Systems said it was awarded a
subcontract by Martin Marietta Corp. in excess of $10 million over a two-year
period to produce high-density multiprocessors for embedded supercomputer
applications.
  Based on Mercury's recently announced RACE architecture, the
multiprocessors will contain 16 compute elements on a double-sided 6U board
using Multi-Chip Module technology. Martin Marietta will use the new
multiprocessors to develop an embedded supercomputer system for scientific
and workstation applications.
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BBN SUBSIDIARY TAKES OVER OPERATIONS OF NEARNET
  Cambridge, Mass. -- Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Boston University,
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
jointly announced Thursday that BBN Technology Services Inc. (BBNTSI) has
assumed responsibility for the activities of the New England Academic and
Research Network (NEARnet).
  BBNTSI is a wholly owned subsidiary of BBN that was recently formed to
offer NEARnet services.
  NEARnet is a data network service enabling users to exchange electronic
mail and access remote computing resources, databases and information on the
Internet.
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MATHSOFT ACQUIRES ASSETS OF STATISTICAL SCIENCES INC.
  Cambridge, Mass. -- MathSoft Inc. Thursday announced it has acquired all of
the assets of Statistical Sciences Inc. (StatSci) of Seattle, Wash., which
develops, markets and supports S-PLUS statistical analysis software.
  MathSoft paid $3.5 million in cash and 348,000 shares of MathSoft common
stock and may pay up to $1 million more in cash or stock, depending on the
performance of the StatSci division over a two-year period.
  S-PLUS is an advanced statistical analysis software package and computing
environment. Based on the S Language statistical software from AT&T's Bell
Laboratories, S-PLUS enables users to perform exploratory data analysis,
graphics, statistics, visualization and mathematical computing in the
Windows, DOS and Unix environments.
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SUN SPARCCLASSIC COMPLIANT WITH EPA ENERGY STAR PROGRAM
  Mountain View, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems Inc. Tuesday announced that two
of its subsidiaries, Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. and SunPics, are
currently shipping energy-efficient products that meet the Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) guidelines for energy savings, as specified in the
EPA's Energy Star Program.
  The products -- the SPARCclassic workstation and the NeWSprinter CL+ ink
jet printer -- are the first systems from Sun to qualify for the Energy Star
logo. The EPA Energy Star program is a voluntary partnership with computer
industry leaders, who are encouraged to make and sell desktop computers,
monitors and printers that are energy efficient and have the capability of
going to a low-power state when they are inactive.
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ORACLE ENJOYS 140 PERCENT JUMP IN NET INCOME FOR Q4
  Redwood City, Calif. -- Oracle Corp., citing strong acceptance of its
latest database software product, reported Tuesday earnings of $69 million,
or 47 cents a share, for its fourth quarter ended May 31, up 140 percent from
earnings of $29 million, or 20 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.
  Fourth-quarter revenues for Oracle, the nation's leading supplier of
database software for mainframes and minicomputers, increased 31 percent to a
record $473 million from $360 million in the same period last year.
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GENSYM PORTS G2 REAL-TIME EXPERT SYSTEM SOFTWARE TO SOLARIS
  Cambridge, Mass. -- Gensym Corp. announced that it has completed porting
its G2 real-time expert system software to SunSoft's Solaris 2.1 platform.
  "Gensym is pleased to be offering our G2 software on Solaris 2.1," said
Gensym Chairman and CEO, Lowell Hawkinson. "We are committed to keeping our
products compatible with the latest operating systems and hardware
standards."
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COMPUTER NETWORK TECHNOLOGY COMPLETES ULTRANET ACQUISITION
  Maple Grove, Minn. -- Computer Network Technology Corp. Wednesday announced
that CNT has completed its acquisition of Ultra Network Technologies Inc. in
exchange for issuing 425,115 shares of CNT's common stock (valued at
approximately $2.8 million based on the closing price of $6.63 per share on
June 30, 1993), and the assumption of certain liabilities.
  Ultra Network Technologies Inc., which had revenue in 1992 of approximately
$13 million, is a privately held company headquartered in San Jose, Calif.
Ultra's principal products include the UltraNet Hub 1000 with supercomputer
and IBM host channel interfaces and the UltraNet Hub 250 for high-performance
workstation networks.