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Esri Announces Next Generation of ArcInfo Will Fully Support Alpha Systems on Digital UNIX and Windows NT

Alpha Systems' Combination of Performance, Scalability Continues to Be a Strong Esri Solution

San Diego, California—Esri announced today that the next generation of Esri's flagship ArcInfo geographic information system (GIS) software will fully support Compaq's powerful Alpha workstations and servers running both Compaq's Digital UNIX and Microsoft's Windows NT operating systems. The announcement was made at the Esri International User Conference at the San Diego Convention Center.

ArcInfo, a client/server architecture built on Windows NT standards and comprising new and advanced GIS tools with links to enterprise resource planning (ERP) supports Compaq's line of Alpha systems for Windows NT and Compaq's Digital UNIX, ranging from single-processor workstations to clustered, multiprocessor AlphaServer systems.

"Through its recent acquisition of Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq brings a long-standing commitment to the GIS market and to the Esri partnership in particular," said Les Crudele, vice president and general manager of Compaq's Workstation Division. "Alpha systems' renowned power for analysis and visualization continues to be a strong solution for Esri's powerful tools for spatial and attribute data management, analysis, visualization, and mapping. Together, they will offer new levels of efficiency and capability to governmental agencies and businesses for planning, building, and maintaining spatial information systems."

Broadest Scalability, Performance

According to Dean McComber, hardware vendor relations and resale marketing manager at Esri, "We are very encouraged by Compaq's continued strong support of the Alpha architecture for high-performance workstations and servers. ArcInfo software's support for Alpha on Windows NT and Compaq's Digital UNIX gives our customers a broad range of scalability and performance options to meet their growing GIS requirements."

McComber added that Esri's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) server software, which is currently available for Compaq's Digital UNIX, has been ported to Alpha systems running Windows NT and is now ready to ship to customers.

Jesse Lipcon, Vice President and General Manager of Compaq's High Performance Server Division, said that compute- and graphics-intensive GIS programs are right in line with Alpha strengths. "Alpha floating-point performance for using and managing spatial data is simply unequaled in the GIS market," he said.
"Besides unmatched scalability, Alpha brings superior graphics performance with PowerStorm accelerators and fast, efficient StorageWorks RAID subsystems for large GIS and image storage needs. Customers will find Compaq and Esri to represent a formidable partnership."