RESTON, Va., and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 21, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:SGI) have signed a cooperative agreement that combines their visualization and technology expertise to revolutionize how warfighters make decisions in the battlespace.
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The two companies will provide visualization solutions -- synthesizing data and presenting it to decision-makers through dramatic new graphical means -- for customers in the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Intelligence community, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Systems engineering and integration work will be performed at Northrop Grumman's Advanced Concepts Demonstration Laboratory (ACDL), at its Mission Systems sector in Reston, Va. The ACDL is a corporate-wide showcase for capabilities in visualization, collaboration and innovative use of command and decision-management data.
"This agreement between Northrop Grumman and SGI is a pooling of leading-edge talent in visualization technology," said Donald C. Winter, president, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. "When dealing with a crisis situation, today's commanders are faced with large volumes of information, and yet must often make informed and justifiable decisions. The intent of this partnership is to develop new means to synthesize, present and distribute information, so as to facilitate effective decision-making in complex situations."
Northrop Grumman and SGI will integrate data from disparate sources and create meaningful, interactive visual displays that enable better situational awareness and, ultimately, better decision-making. The companies will leverage SGI's powerful computing and visualization machines with Northrop Grumman's systems integration expertise and knowledge of agency missions to build complex models to assess, for example, the effects of weather on the battlespace.
"Real-time, big-data machines are becoming more and more necessary to integrate vast data flows in defense and homeland security applications," said Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO, Silicon Graphics Inc. "The new partnership between Northrop Grumman and SGI will create awesome decision-support capabilities in complex and dynamic situations for key government agencies."
"Our integration expertise and knowledge of the missions, combined with the powerful SGI computing systems, will result in better presentations of complex information that will help warfighters," added Winter. "Our goal is for everyone to communicate effectively -- from the Defense Department, to the intelligence agencies, to homeland security -- the need has never been greater."
Over the next five years, Northrop Grumman will use several SGI systems such as high-end Altix(r) servers, Silicon Graphics Prism(tm) visualization systems and SGI(r) InfiniteStorage solutions. They will also form joint engineering teams to address new applications. Northrop Grumman will bring its systems integration and extensive knowledge of the Defense Department, intelligence and homeland security missions to bear on the team while SGI will provide four types of technology for evaluation and characterization: visualization, media fusion/collaboration, modeling and simulation and real-time image processing.
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, based in Reston, Va., is a global integrator of complex, mission-enabling systems and services for defense, intelligence and civil government markets. The sector's technology leadership and expertise span areas such as strategic systems, including ICBMs; missile defense; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; command and control; and technical services and training.
SGI is a leader in high-performance, data-centric computing, visualization and storage solutions that greatly improve situational awareness and decision support. SGI powers the digital battlespace with products and solutions to acquire, process, fuse and visualize mission-critical data from multiple sources, enabling faster analysis for better operational decisions. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the web at www.sgi.com.
Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, the SGI logo and the SGI cube are registered trademarks and Silicon Graphics Prism and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries worldwide. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
