FORCE ANNOUNCES DUAL PENTIUM III BLADE PREPPED FOR HP BLADE SERVER ALLIANCE PROGRAM.

Force Computers has announced that its dual Low-Voltage Pentium III CompactPCI CPCI-786 board-level embedded computing platform has been submitted to Hewlett-Packard Company's Blade Server Alliance Program for testing and possible qualification. It's the first dual processor board so accepted. Powered by dual high-performance Low-Voltage Pentium[R] III processors, the CPCI-786 boasts flexible configuration options and maintains low operating temperatures. In addition, the CPCI-786 offers up to 4GBytes interleaved SDRAM for maximum memory bandwidth and can be equipped with an onboard hard disk drive. Other features include:

* One PCI mezzanine card (PMC) expansion slot with 64-bit/66MHz PCI capability for added I/O functionality (i.e., Fibre Channel, VGA graphics, network interfaces)

* CompactPCI Packet-Switching Backplane (cPSB) support (PICMG 2.16)

* IPMI system management support (PICMG 2.9)

Capable of running Windows[R] 2000 or Linux variant operating systems, this server blade offers a choice of technologies to suit specific application requirements.

"The dual Pentium III CPCI-786, Force's next contribution to the HP Blade Server Alliance Program, follows on the heels of our successful testing and qualification of the single Pentium III CPCI-736 in the HP platform," said Gerhard Mayr, corporate director of business development for Force's Boards Business Unit. "We believe that HP's program will aid the rollout of CompactPCI technology in the enterprise space, and if it qualifies, the CPCI-786 will enable our customers to shift to a higher level of computing performance within this new HP blade server environment."

Force joined the HP Blade Server Alliance Program in December 2001 in an effort to further promote adoption of the CompactPCI form-factor in the enterprise and communications markets. In early February 2002, Force qualified its single Pentium III processor server blade, the CPCI-736, in HP's blade server chassis, and the company plans to support this program with a number of innovative server blades and system platforms-including NEBS Level 3-tested solutions.

"With Force's CPCI-786 now submitted for testing in the HP Blade Server Alliance Program, we continue to move forward to strengthen our blade product offerings, such as with this dual Pentium III blade-the first multi-processor board entered into the program," said Mark Hudson, worldwide marketing manager for HP's Business Systems and Technology Organization. "By offering a gamut of blades-from the most cost effective to the highest end-developers will find an increasing number of alternatives from which to choose, enabling them to pick a solution that adheres to their exact application requirements."

CPCI-786 server blades will be available through Force's Early Access Unit (EAU) program in April 2002 with volume shipments scheduled for June 2002. OEM volume pricing starts at approximately $2,500.