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UB OFFICIALS CLAIM MERGER WON'T AFFECT BIO-MED CENTER
Published on March 20, 2002
Author: FRED O. WILLIAMS-NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
© The Buffalo News Inc.
Merger target Compaq Computer Corp. may be swallowed up, but its support for Buffalo's bio-medical research center will stay put, University at Buffalo officials said Tuesday. Compaq is one of the top corporate backers of UB's Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, having pledged $42.6 million in cash and equipment.
Now, its existance as an independent company may be coming to an end. On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiornia predicted victory in her company's proxy-vote drive to acquire Compaq. But in recent meetings at UB, Compaq gave reassurances that its support for the bioinformatics center will continue - merger or no merger, UB Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi said. "It will mean nothing for us," she said of the potential takeover. "We will work with the same people we've been working with." Compaq spokeswoman Barbara Crystal said she couldn't comment on the possible takeover. UB is waiting for two sophisticated pieces of Compaq equipment that will support the bioinformatics center, said Russ Miller, director of the university's Center for Computational Research. The first, a data storage system, is to be installed this spring, he said. A bank of Compaq AlphaServer computers is coming in the fall. "Everything is still on target," Miller said, as the Amherst campus prepares to install the equipment. Compaq machines played a role in the sequencing of the human genetic code. Now the company is working to preserve its momentum as a maker of research tools by signing cooperative agreements such as the one with UB. Under the agreement, Compaq is giving UB a discount on its high-end equipment, along with software and access to a pool of venture capital, Capaldi said. The amount that UB is paying for the discounted equipment is confidential, she said. The AlphaServer at UB has 64 processors with a combined number-crunching power of 1 trillion operations per second, Compaq has said. The "teraflop" performance level will put UB among a small group of research universities with such computing power. Both H-P and Compaq make business-class server computers. But Compaq's high-end storage and computer products are unique to the company, Miller said. Compaq's sales to higher education is a booming part of its business, with 50 percent growth in 2001, spokeswoman Crystal said. The bioinformatics center isn't the only organization in Western New York that could be affected by the possible merger of the computer makers. Ingram Micro has ties to both H-P and Compaq, as a distributor of both companies' products, spokeswoman Jennifer Bair Marchetta said. However, she said, it's impossible to tell what impact a combination of the two companies might have in Ingram and its national sales center in Amherst. e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com<
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