There are many legends in the world of business innovation, and Intel ® Corporation, a company that literally changed the world through development of breakthrough after breakthrough in microprocessors and other computer technologies, is justifiably one of the best known out there.
An important part of Intel’s product offerings is the high-performance Itanium2 ® processor, currently used in some of the most demanding computer applications in the world. I know this particular processor quite well, having launched the development of several supercomputer applications using the Itanium family when I was SVP at SGI several years ago, and can personally speak to the brilliance behind what is clearly one of the most innovative processors ever developed anywhere.
To help support the development of technology and products that can further advance systems and advanced enterprise applications using Itanium2 ®, in September 2005 a consortium of companies including Bull, Fujitsu, Fujitsu/Siemens, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, SGI, Unisys, and Intel itself formed an organization known as the Itanium Solutions Alliance. And in April 2007, the Itanium Solutions Alliance announced the three top winners in its newly-created “Innovation Awards” series, celebrating innovation in the use of Itanium2 for Enterprise Business Applications, Entrepreneurial Innovation, and applications with a major Humanitarian Impact.
Recently I had the honor to speak with these new award winners in depth, in three separate interviews.
The winner of the Enterprise Business Applications Innovation Award was Royal London Group. In my interview with Royal London’s senior IT executive Mr. Neil Heydon-Dumbleton, he tells the story of how the company’s conversion to an Itanium2-based solution for their Scottish Life Assurance Division produced dramatic gains in performance for their customers along with significant lower operating costs for the business.
The winner of the Entrepreneurial Business Applications Innovation award was Secure64 Software Corporation. In my interview with Bill Worley, Secure64′s co-founder and CTO, he provides us with a unique “master class” on how his company created a unique DNS server architecture that is “virtually invulnerable” to outside software attacks (that are, unfortunately, part of our world these days) on servers using a combination of their own proprietary technology and the unique security features built into the Itanium2 processor.
The winner of the Humanitarian Impact Innovation award was Dr. Carlos Simmerling of Stony Brook University in New York. In my interview with Dr. Simmerling, you’ll learn about his team’s breakthrough computer modeling supporting advanced HIV and AIDS research using the latest supercomputer technologies, and utilizing capabilities unique to the Itanium2 processor.
In all three interviews, you’ll get a unique opportunity to “look inside” how an established corporation, a brilliantly-conceived startup, and a leading-edge research team approach the practice of modern technology innovation “in depth”. And for our regular Stranova podcast listeners, yes these are a bit deeper technically than some of our past interviews, but we encourage you to listen for the full scope of learnings these interviews offer for strategic innovators everywhere. You can listen in on our streaming podcasts by clicking on the links below.
You can also learn more about the Itanium Solutions Alliance group itself by visiting their website at:
The Itanium Solutions Alliance
computing itanium Itanium Solutions Alliance medicine supercomputer