The Bluffdale company announced Monday it has signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Department of Defense for its largest order ever - five supercomputing systems in all.
Steve Perry, director of government sales for privately held Linux Networx, would not reveal his company's actual take on the projects. However, he characterized the contract as a milestone for the Utah company in more ways than just monetary.
"This is enormously exciting for us," he said. "[Defense] is a huge market, and this is our first big contract" to produce supercomputers for use in highly classified settings.
The Pentagon is acquiring three Advanced Technology Clusters systems, each to be custom-designed for use at the Army Research Laboratory inside Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Linux Networx will build those supercomputing clusters based on Intel dual-core, 3.2 gigabyte processors. One of the ATC systems will consist of 4,488 processors, another 3,336; a third ATC system, to be used as a testing platform, will consist of 68 of the high-speed chips.
DOD also is buying two of Linux Networx's new line of LS-1 "mid-level" supersystems. One is headed for Aberdeen, the second will be delivered to the Army's Dugway Proving Ground facilities in Utah's west desert.
Perry said Linux Networx's 200-strong work force plans to have the supercomputers built, tested and delivered by this fall.
Charles Nietubicz, who is spearheading the supercomputer project for the Defense Department, said Linux Networx's record of service, quality and cost-effectiveness made it a winner when DOD went looking to make its biennial computing upgrades.
"These [Linux Networx] cluster systems are ready for prime time," Nietubicz said. "We looked around this year, and with the codes we wanted to run, the company's good record with DOD . . . and the price they asked" it made the company the clear choice.
By this fall, when the new systems are set to come online, the Army will have more than doubled its processing power from the current 37 "teraflops" to 80, or roughly 80 trillion operations per second.
As with most privately held companies, Linux Networx keeps specific financial data secret. However, the company does acknowledge that fiscal 2005 saw record orders and revenue growth - including three consecutive quarters of record earnings.
The company, which made its first processor-clustering system in 1997, boasts a customer base of nearly 170 supercomputing clients. Among them are Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Boeing, Audi, BMW, Caterpillar, DaimlerChrysler, Glaxo SmithKline, Harley-Davidson and Motorola.
In a separate announcement Monday, Chairman and CEO Robert Ewald cited growth as a primary reason for adding six high-tech executives to spearhead the company's global services, government relations, operations, product management, research and development and marketing efforts.
David M. Morton, formerly of Maui High Performance Computing Center, joined Linux Networx as vice president of research and development; Ben Passarelli, a 13-year SGI veteran, is vice president of product management; David Sundstrom, former chief operating officer for PC-Doctor Inc., joins as vice president of global services; Daniel Walsh, last a vice president for Advanced Data Exchange, takes over as vice president of operations; Rebel Brown, founder and president of Cognoscenti, is vice president of marketing; and L. Bruce White, formerly with Cray Research, becomes vice president of planning and government programs.
bmims@sltrib.com
