SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange
Act of 1934
Date of Report: October 11, 1994
CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware 1-10386 75-1838006
(State or other (Commission (I.R.S. Employer
jurisdiction of File Number) Identification
incorporation or Number)
organization)
3000 Waterview Parkway
Richardson, Texas 75080
(address of principal executive offices) (zip code)
Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (214) 497-4000
Item 5. Other Events
On October 3, 1994, Convex Computer Corporation (the Company)
and the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) announced an
agreement under which HP will become a value-added
reseller of the Company's Exemplar SPP systems. HP will
resell the Company's Exemplar SPP systems through its
worldwide sales force. It is expected that initial sales of
the Exemplar SPP systems to HP for resale to end-users will
be made during calendar year 1995. Implementation of the agreement
between the Company and HP is subject to definition of final
manufacturing and product quality assurance procedures for the
Exemplar SPP and documentation of various support agreements
covering the Exemplar SPP systems.
A copy of the above-mentioned press release is attached as an
exhibit to this report.
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act
of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be
signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly
authorized.
CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION
J. CAMERON MCMARTIN
_________________________
J. Cameron McMartin
Vice President, Finance and
Chief Financial Officer
Date: October 11, 1994
EXHIBIT 1
NEWS HEWLETT
PACKARD
Public Relations Department
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, California 94304
EDITORIAL CONTACTS: PRCSJ600435
Tim Hurley Kathy Sowards
Copithorne & Bellows for HP Convex
508/436-5042 214/497-4230
HP ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH CONVEX COMPUTER CORP.
TO RESELL CONVEX'S PA-RISC-BASED EXEMPLAR PARALLEL SYSTEMS
HP Bolsters High-performance Computing Solutions,
Brings Scalable, Parallel Servers to PA-RISC Family
PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 3, 1994 -- Hewlett-Packard
Company and Convex Computer Corp. (NYSE: CNX) today announced
a strategic worldwide agreement under which HP will become a
value-added reseller (VAR) of Convex's Exemplar SPP (Scalable
Parallel Processor) systems and will resell the product
family through its worldwide sales force. As a result of the
announcement, HP now offers the industry's broadest range of
compatible systems, ranging from desktop workstations to
supercomputer-class, scalable parallel servers.
The Exemplar system, the world's first multipurpose
parallel server, is based on HP's industry-leading PA-RISC
technology. Exemplar systems provide HP customers with a
natural migration path to high-performance computing
solutions for customers in computational chemistry,
electronic design automation, fluid dynamics and mechanical-
engineering analysis.
Exemplar systems allow advanced users to run thousands
of applications on a scalable hardware and software design
that expands from servers to the most powerful
supercomputers, with price-performance that leverages HP's
cost-effective advanced computing technologies.
"The addition of Convex's Exemplar Series to the
PA-RISC-based HP 9000 product family gives HP a natural
extension at the high end of its product line that allows our
customers to solve complex, supercomputing-class problems,"
said Karl Fruend, marketing manager for HP's Workstation
Systems Division. "Now our customers have direct access to
scalable, open-architecture systems that not only offer
significant price/performance advantages over high-cost
massively parallel processing (MPP) systems, but also deliver the
functionality and application availability of RISC
workstations. For technical users, this is an unbeatable
combination that will complement their existing workstation
and server environments."
"Our agreement with HP fortifies Convex's sales and
marketing strategy for Exemplar, expands our successful
relationship with HP and offers new opportunities for
Exemplar sales," said William Bock, senior vice president,
worldwide sales for Convex. "Exemplar has been well received
by our customers in key market areas, such as oil-and-gas
exploration, aerospace and defense and education. HP has
successfully sold its Series 700 workstations into these
markets, and we are confident that this agreement will help
expand Exemplar's market penetration.
"The Exemplar parallel processing systems from HP and
Convex will enable us to reduce product-development time and
cost while improving quality," said Dr. Howard Crabb, manager
of computer-aided engineering at Ford's Alpha Simultaneous
Engineering. "We are looking forward to working with Convex
and HP as we move forward in implementing a new technology
platform for automotive-design research."
Today's announcement strengthens the business and
technology alliance between HP and Convex that began in 1992.
In October 1992, the companies announced cluster-computing
solutions based on the HP 9000 workstations running
specialized Convex cluster software and Convex's Meta Series,
a system that integrated Convex supercomputers and HP
workstations. In May 1993, HP announced it would license to
Convex its UNIX system-based HP-UX operating systems and
related software technologies, and Convex will license to HP
current and future software technologies.
The Exemplar Family
The Exemplar family includes two models: the SPP1000/CD
(Compact Design) workgroup server, configured with two to 16
processors for up to 3.2 GFLOPS of peak performance, and the
SPP1000/XA (eXtended Architecture) scalable system with
between eight and 128 processors for over 25.6 GFLOPS of peak
performance.
The processing engine behind the SPP1000 is the widely
accepted PA-7100 microprocessor from HP. Each processor
operates at 100 MHz and offers 200 MFLOPS of peak
performance. The Exemplar family's implementation of the
PA-7100 includes an expanded primary cache of 2MB (1MB data
and 1MB instruction) to further increase performance.
Broad High-performance Application Portfolio
Exemplar systems easily surpass the productivity level
of traditional MPP systems through access to the broadest
range of software applications for high-performance
computing. By offering binary compatibility with the HP-UX
operating system, Exemplar users have access to the more than
8,000 applications available on HP workstations and servers.
HP and Convex can deliver jointly the broadest spectrum
of application availability to meet user requirements in
these performance-critical markets. Through source and
library compatibility with Convex C Series and traditional
MPPs, Exemplar SPP users have access to hundreds of
parallelized scientific and technical applications. Exemplar
is ideally suited for customers in industries such as
aerospace and defense, automotive and oil-and-gas
exploration.
U.S. Prices and Availability
The Exemplar Series servers are expected to be available
from HP during the first quarter of 1995. Prices for the
SPP1000/CD range from $145,000 to $750,000. Exemplar
SPP1000/XA systems are priced from $550,000 to $8 million.
The HP 9000 workstation family consists of desktop and
deskside workstations and computational clusters serving
customers in both business and technical markets. HP 9000
servers, based on HP's industry-leading HP-UX operating
system and PA-RISC technology, provide the high-performance
and systems-management capabilities required by data-center
environments, as well as the flexibility and performance
necessary for client/server implementations.
Convex Computer Corporation (NYSE:CNX) is a leading
supplier of affordable, high-performance computing
technologies. The company markets its products primarily to
scientific, engineering and technical users for a wide
variety of applications including data management. Convex
has sold more than 1,200 systems to over 600 customers in 48
countries. The systems are sold and serviced through direct
sales and an extensive distribution network.
HP has been delivering PA-RISC-based computers since
1986 with high reliability, data integrity, data availability
and system availability. PA-RISC is being advanced by the
Precision RISC Organization (PRO), an association of
industry-leading companies that is broadening the use of
PA-RISC technology and delivering its benefits to more
customers worldwide. A partial list of PRO members includes
Allegro Consulting, CS Defense, Convex, HP, Hitachi, Ltd.,
Hughes Aircraft Co., Information Builders, Inc., Mitsubishi
Electric Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co., Oracle Corp.,
Samsung Electronics Co., Stratus Computer, Inc., Winbond
Electronics Corp. and Yokogawa Electric Corp.
HP is the leading supplier of RISC-based computers, with
34 percent of worldwide revenues. HP is the second-largest
computer supplier in the United States with computer-related
revenue of $15.6 billion in its 1993 fiscal year.
Hewlett-Packard Company is an international manufacturer
of measurement and computation products and systems
recognized for excellence in quality and support. The
company's products and services are used in industry,
business, engineering, science, medicine and education in
approximately 100 countries. HP has 97,900 employees and had
revenue of $20.3 billion in its 1993 fiscal year.
HP-UX is based on and is compatible with Novell's UNIX
operating system. It also complies with X/Open's XPG4, POSIX
1003.1, 1003.2, FIPS 151-1 and SVID2 interface
specifications.
UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other
countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company
Limited.
X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company Limited in the UK and
other countries.
