Last week proved to be a very busy week for new IT and informatics product announcements. Here is a compilation of the major products news for the week of September 19 to 23.
SGI announced the SGI Reconfigurable Application-Specific Computing (RASC) technology, which lets researchers tap the increased processing power of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) for their high-performance computing applications. RASC add-in modules that plug into SGI Intel Itanium2 processors-bases servers and visualization systems are available now.
Dell, in partnerships with Oracle and Microsoft, announced new certified servers for high-performance database applications. Specifically, Dell will now sell a pre-configured and certified two-node Dell PowerEdge 2850 server system with Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition and Oracle Real Application Clusters. The servers use Intel Xeon processors, run Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, and use Dell/EMC Fibre Channel storage.
Waters Corp. announced it is shipping Waters Analytical Workflow Manager Software 1.4.7, an updated version of its workflow software (formerly known as Q-DIS/R). The software combines work list management, sample tracking, measurement setup and triggering with data analysis and the ability to share experimental results with colleagues. Using the software, researchers can set up workflows with prioritized analysis requests that can be transferred to lab instrument work lists. Additionally, processes can be integrated into other systems such as the Waters eLab Notebook Software.
SAS announced a partnership with IMS Health, the company that collects pharmaceutical sales information used by life science and healthcare organizations. Using data integration and analytic elements of the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, IMS is offering a new consulting service called the IMS Sales Force Effectiveness Precision Suite. The suite is designed to help pharmaceutical sales and marketing managers optimize sales resources.
MCI introduced an on-demand, pay-as-you-go storage service that allows companies to store critical data and centralize the storage of data from multiple locations. The service is based on MCI’s Enterprise Hosting Services, and for additional data protection the service can be used in conjunction with other MCI services such as its Smart Back Up and Enhanced Smart Back Up offerings.
De Novo Pharmaceuticals announced Reflex, a major upgrade to its in silico drug design platform SkelGen. When designing small-molecule drug candidates, Reflex allows SkelGen to take into account the rotational flexibility of amino acids in the target enzyme active site.