---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SunPro Partnership with Russian Scientists SunFLASH Vol 45 #1 September 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUNPRO ANNOUNCES NEW SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP WITH RUSSIAN COMPUTER SCIENTISTS Russian Team to Contribute Advanced Supercomputer Technology MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--September 1, 1992--SunPro(TM), the software development business of Sun Microsystems, Inc., today announced that it has contracted with a team of 33 highly-skilled software engineers from Russia as an extension to its core engineering group. The Russian team will work on enhancements to SunPro commercial software development products under a six-month, renewable contract. The work will be conducted in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk under the direction of Russian supercomputer inventor Dr. Boris Babaian of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Babaian and eight members of the team are visiting the United States this week to initiate the project. The agreement is among the first in which Russian scientists have been employed by a Western firm to develop commercial products for distribution in key markets including the U.S., Europe and Japan. A previous agreement between Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc. (SMLI) and Russian scientists focused only on research. "For SunPro, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contract with a complete team of experts led by one of the top computer designers in the world," said Jon Kannegaard, general manager of SunPro. "We think this agreement sets a precedent that other research and development-intensive companies-in many sectors of the American economy-can emulate." "Our collaboration with SunPro is a way to promote one of Russia's natural resources--its people," said Dr. Babaian. "Our scientists are very familiar with the UNIX(R) operating system, and we're pleased to have the opportunity to work with the UNIX technology leader." Three separate projects will be undertaken by the Russian engineers. Two of these center around SunPro's SPARCompiler(TM) FORTRAN and SPARCompiler Pascal products, which translate English-like commands into instructions that a computer can understand. These projects will be undertaken by Russian teams in Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg. The third project, to be conducted by the Moscow team, focuses on SPARCompiler performance optimization, which enables user applications to run even faster on computers built around the SPARC(R) architecture, an advanced RISC chip design. The projects will be overseen by Dr. Babaian, who is headquartered in Moscow, where he also heads up the newly-formed Moscow Center of SPARC Technology. Dr. Babaian is one of the most accomplished computer scientists in the world, having designed the Elbrus-3 supercomputer, a machine reported to be three times faster than the high-performance Cray Y-MP(R) supercomputer. The engineers from Russia working with SunPro are the same team that created the advanced software optimizing compilers for the Elbrus, and are now bringing this advanced technology to the U.S. Dr. Babaian also leads an engineering team that began working on research projects with Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc. in March 1992. Established in July 1991, SunPro is a Sun Microsystems, Inc. business. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., SunPro is the worldwide volume leader in professional software development products for the SPARC and UNIX platform. FOR MORE INFORMATION: SunPro: Pattie Walters (415) 336-4638 Hi-Tech Communications: Amal Abed (415) 904-7000 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.