Industrial Light and Magic has joined the empire, at least in terms of hardware.
The technical effects studio has switched from using RISC-Unix workstations from SGI to using Intel-based Dell systems running Linux for the bulk of its animation and special effects work, said Cliff Plumer, ILM's chief technology officer. As part of the conversion, ILM recently deployed 600 Pentium 4 workstations.
"The Intel workstations that were deployed were probably 20 percent of the price of SGI workstations we bought a few years ago," Plumer said. "Performancewise, they are about three times as fast."
ILM created the special effects in the "Star Wars" series of movies, among other blockbuster films.
ILM's shift from RISC workstations to more standardized workstations is part of an ongoing change in the computer rooms of the entertainment industry.
RISC-Unix machines from companies such as SGI dominated Hollywood for years because they offered far superior computing power. Most of the high-end graphics applications also were written for RISC computers. Typically, RISC companies built their own chips and computers, and developed their own version of Unix.
Now, the performance gap has largely vanished and application developers such as Alias/Wavefront have moved their products to Intel machines. In addition, several of the companies building workstations around RISC chips have gone out of business or, in the case of SGI, begun to de-emphasize RISC because of the cost involved in developing the chips.
It's also easier to find employees with experience on machines running Windows or Linux with Intel-compatible chips.
News source: ZDNet
The technical effects studio has switched from using RISC-Unix workstations from SGI to using Intel-based Dell systems running Linux for the bulk of its animation and special effects work, said Cliff Plumer, ILM's chief technology officer. As part of the conversion, ILM recently deployed 600 Pentium 4 workstations.
"The Intel workstations that were deployed were probably 20 percent of the price of SGI workstations we bought a few years ago," Plumer said. "Performancewise, they are about three times as fast."
ILM created the special effects in the "Star Wars" series of movies, among other blockbuster films.
ILM's shift from RISC workstations to more standardized workstations is part of an ongoing change in the computer rooms of the entertainment industry.
RISC-Unix machines from companies such as SGI dominated Hollywood for years because they offered far superior computing power. Most of the high-end graphics applications also were written for RISC computers. Typically, RISC companies built their own chips and computers, and developed their own version of Unix.
Now, the performance gap has largely vanished and application developers such as Alias/Wavefront have moved their products to Intel machines. In addition, several of the companies building workstations around RISC chips have gone out of business or, in the case of SGI, begun to de-emphasize RISC because of the cost involved in developing the chips.
It's also easier to find employees with experience on machines running Windows or Linux with Intel-compatible chips.
News source: ZDNet
Microsoft CRM will come in both Standard and Professional versions.
The Pro version will include extra features such as workflow and email management (preferably using a connection to Exchange Server). In addition, the Pro version will integrate with Microsoft Great Plains and newly acquired Navision applications for back-office management.
Thacher said third-party application developers will be able to take advantage of an embedded Microsoft BizTalk Server to integrate with Microsoft CRM. The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) will release a software development kit (SDK) for CRM integration. Microsoft CRM won't be an off-the-shelf program, though. The product will be
available through various Microsoft partners who will get sales and integration training this fall, during the final stages of the current beta.
Microsoft built CRM on Microsoft SQL Server, using the new C# language for Microsoft .NET. Thacher said CRM will be the company's first .NET business application. The Service module will let companies build a knowledge base of past cases and their solutions, and the Sales and Service modules will integrate so that sales reps can keep tabs on any recently reported customer problems. Built-in tools will let CRM administrators add data fields, build workflows, and make other changes to adapt the product to their company. Thacher said the interface won't be completely customizable but demonstrated that when users change a form (e.g., to add a new field), the altered form will work in both Outlook and Web browser clients.
One feature from Microsoft's original plan for CRM won't make it into version 1.0: the ability to build a customer portal from the CRM knowledge base and other data. Thacher said that feature is still in the works for a later release. Thacher also said that Microsoft plans to port key functionality from Microsoft CRM to bCentral--Microsoft's set of hosted application services for small business--removing any features that small businesses might consider overkill.
-= Images by Baseline =-
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