To All:
Tuesday November 19 5:12 PM EDT
Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Purchase Thinking
Machines' GlobalWorks Assets
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 1996--Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced that it has reached an agreement to purchase the GlobalWorks-related assets of Thinking Machines Corp., a pioneer in high-performance parallel computing, for an undisclosed amount.
The purchase of Thinking Machines' GlobalWorks software will strengthen Sun's technology platform to meet the demanding requirements of high-performance computing (HPC) in markets including financial analysis, research and development, mechanical engineering analysis, electronic design and geoscience.
"Sun's planned investment in the GlobalWorks technology from Thinking Machines demonstrates Sun's commitment to high-performance computing customers," said John Shoemaker, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Server and Storage Group at Sun Microsystems Computer Co.
"Thinking Machines' exceptional technology for developing and running parallelized applications on distributed SPARC Solaris systems, coupled with our expertise and powerful products based on SPARC Solaris symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems, offers an outstanding combination to meet the requirements of high performance computer users."
"Sun's acquisition of GlobalWorks will accelerate our transformation to a company that specializes in knowledge discovery software and services," said Robert L. Doretti, president and CEO of Thinking Machines. "This transaction benefits both parties. It enables Sun to be highly competitive in the HPC arena. At the same time, it
enables us to focus our energies on our Darwin data mining solution and other decision support products."
GlobalWorks is a standards-based parallel computing environment that unifies distributed computing resources into an efficient, high-performance system with a single system image. The primary assets to be acquired include:
-- The GlobalWorks operating environment for configuring, managing and using cluster and/or SMP servers as a single computing resource.
-- The Prism toolset, including compilers, libraries and conversion tools, for creating, debugging and tuning parallel applications to run in a cluster environment.
As part of the agreement, Sun will offer employment to all employees associated with the GlobalWorks business unit of Thinking Machines. Reporting to David Yen, vice president, these employees will become part of the Enterprise Server Product Group within Sun Microsystems Computer Co., and will be located in Chelmsford, Mass.
The agreement is subject to approval by the controlling management at Sun and Thinking Machines and the transaction is expected to close within 30 days.
About Thinking Machines Corp.
Founded in 1983, Thinking Machines Corp. revolutionized high-performance computing with its parallel processing technology. Today, Thinking Machines produces, markets and sells data mining and knowledge discovery software and services. With offices worldwide, Thinking Machines is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts.
About Sun Microsystems Inc.
With annual revenues of more than $7 billion, Sun Microsystems Inc. provides products and services that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a
proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing.
Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Mountain View.
Note To Editors: Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems Inc. in the United States and other countries.
All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon
an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems Inc.
Press announcements and other information about Sun Microsystems are available on the Internet via the World Wide Web using a tool such as Netscape or NCSA Mosaic. Type sun.com at the URL prompt.
CONTACT: Sun Microsystems Computer Company
Lisa Ganier, 415/786-8088
lisa.ganier@sun.com
or
For Sun Microsystems
Leiann Lee, 503/236-8079
leiannlee@earthlink.net
or
Thinking Machines Corporation
Alison Holland, 617/276-0400 ext. 5508
alison@think.com |
