Roundup: VISI, The Planet, Google TV, Cray

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

VISI opens Minnesota data center. VISI will celebrate the grand opening of its newest data center with an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday at VISI's Eden Prairie headquarters. The 18,000 square foot facility is built to Tier III specifications and when completely built out will be one of the largest data centers in the state. “The additional space provided by our Eden Prairie facility will allow more Midwest companies to expand and benefit from colocating their mission critical equipment in a world-class data center," said Mike Sowada, CEO of VISI. In March VISI was acquired by TDS Communications.

The Planet reports first quarter results. The Planet discussed its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2010. "We launched the year with an entirely new focus on delivering customer value, coupled with the declaration of being first-to-market with the latest processors for our customers," said CEO Doug Erwin. "The upper end of our business continues to grow at double-digit rates, and the managed hosting business is making great strides and hitting its revenue targets. We’re encouraged by participation in our cloud computing beta program, which we expect to launch this quarter." First quarter highlights included the introduction of pricing reductions, new servers equipped with Intel Xeon X5600 processors, an enhanced reseller program, more than $7 million in network investments, an iPhone mobile application and two customer feature videos.

Industry leaders announce Google TV.  At the Google I/O conference Thursday Intel, Sony and Logitech, together with Best Buy, DISH Network and Adobe, joined Google on stage to announce their support for Google TV.  Google TV was presented as an open platform to bring the power of the web to the television viewing experience.  The platform will pair Intel's latest system-on-a-chip Atom CE4100 processor with the Android platform and Google's Chrome browser. The Atom chip will power both Sony's new "Sony Internet TV" lineup as well as a companion box made by Logitech that will bring Google TV to existing HDTV home entertainment systems.

Cray awarded $47 million contract. Cray announced it has received a contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) with a next-generation Cray supercomputer. Named the Climate Modeling and Research System (CMRS), NOAA and its research partners will use the supercomputer to address global climate change questions.  The contract calls for a Cray XT6 and delivery of a next-generation Cray supercomputer code-named 'Baker'.  Cray's Baker supercomputer is expected to be released in the third quarter of 2010 and will feature a new interconnect chipset known as "Gemini".