HP Ranks "Best in Class" in Latest IDC High-performance Computing Benchmark
HP Receives Top Honors in Two Out of Four Categories; Places Three Systems in Top Five Positions in Third Category
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2002--
HP (NYSE:HPQ - News) today announced that its server products achieved
top honors in two out of four categories of the most recent IDC
Balanced Rating, a new standardized evaluation for computer systems
running supercomputer applications. In a third category, HP placed
three systems in the top five positions.
The IDC Balanced Rating test is conducted by IDC, the world's
leading provider of IT analysis and market data, with extensive input
from the high-performance computing (HPC) community. The rankings
reflect a comprehensive evaluation of the overall capabilities of
computers in three critical areas of performance: processor
performance, memory system capability and scaling capability.
"Using the new IDC approach to comparing HPC computers, HP
products won the top positions in two of the four IDC segments --
Divisional and Departmental," said Earl Joseph II, research director,
worldwide systems and servers, IDC. "With these segments representing
the majority of technical computing market revenues, HP is once again
demonstrating its commitment to delivering competitive products to its
customers."
"The IDC Balanced Rating is an unbiased ranking by experts in the
field of high-performance technical computing -- providing a service
much like Consumer Reports, but for the technical computing customer,"
said Steve Joachims, marketing manager, HP High Performance Technical
Computing Division. "The rankings of products in this latest report
will match what many users will see when running a wide range of
computationally intensive workloads.
"The fact that HP dominates competitors in three categories
demonstrates not only the superiority of our current products, but
also HP's commitment to delivering solutions which span the technical
computing market from top to bottom."
The latest rankings list 893 currently installed HPC systems in
four buyer segments:
- Technical Capability Computers -- Systems purchased to solve
the most demanding problems
- Technical Enterprise Computers -- Capacity systems sold for $1
million or more
- Technical Divisional Computers -- Capacity systems sold from
$250,000 to 999,000
- Technical Departmental Computers -- Capacity systems sold for
less than $250,000
The HP Superdome server (based on the PA-8700 processor) rated
"Best in Class" in the Technical Divisional category and the HP rp8400
server (also based on the PA-8700) ranked "Best in Class" in the
Technical Departmental category. With the recent addition of
AlphaServer systems to HP's product line, HP also scored three out of
the top five spots in the technical Capability computers category. The
HP LANL AlphaServer SC45 P-2, the HP PSC AlphaServer SC45 and the HP
CEA DAM AlphaServer SC45 ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Additionally, HP's server products ranked in the top five for the
Enterprise classification.
The Terascale Computing System, an HP AlphaServer SC45
supercomputer with more than 3,000 processors, was installed at the
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center last October with support from the
National Science Foundation. It is the most powerful system in the
United States committed to unclassified research.
"This system, brought into being through our relationship with HP,
enables researchers at U.S. universities to attack the most
challenging problems in engineering and science," said Michael Levine
and Ralph Roskies, scientific directors, Pittsburgh Supercomputing
Center. "Researchers have flocked to use this machine, and already in
its short lifetime, it has made possible new work in several fields,
including storm modeling and new understanding of an important protein
family."
About HP
HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies,
solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's
offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access
devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP merged with
Compaq Computer Corp. on May 3, 2002. The merged company had combined
revenue of approximately $81.7 billion in fiscal 2001 and operations
in more than 160 countries. More information about HP is available at
http://www.hp.com.
Contact:
Weber Shandwick for HP
Venita Robinson, 650/532-4077
vrobinson@webershandwick.com
