NextComputing's Vigor Pro: A Portable, Rugged Workstation

What's half desktop, half beast, and more than you could ever afford? You're looking at it. NextComputing is a company with a history of creating super expensive, arguably portable desktops that are rugged to the core. The new Vigor Evo fits the bill, and it's definitely one of the strangest machines we have seen in recent memory.

It was created for military and homeland security operations, which means that it's perfectly suitable for any wild forest mission you may have up your own sleeve. This is a "stand-alone" portable workstation, with three built-in HD monitors, multiple PCI Express Slots, up to 16GB of EEC RAM, one or two Xeon CPUs, internal storage for up to 11TB, an integrated 17" display (optional 2nd and 3rd displays, too), and a starting weight of 35lbs. There's not a mention of a price (we're sure the government has a pricing list), but it's bound to be expensive. And worth every penny if you plan on going into the wild.

NextComputing Unveils Newest High-Performance Rugged Mobile Workstation, Vigor Evo Plus

NASHUA, N.H. – October 13, 2010 – NextComputing, a leading manufacturer of high-performance portable and small form-factor workstations and servers, announces the Vigor Evo Plus. The latest in the company's line of rugged mobile computers is designed to support high-end software applications in deployed environments.

Created for military and homeland security operations, these customers can now run mission-critical applications on a "stand-alone," transportable workstation/server platform, optimized for size, weight, and power (SWaP). Even with up to three built-in HD monitors, the Vigor Evo Plus is still less than half the size and weight of an equivalent performance rackmount or tower system, while consuming significantly less power.

The Vigor Evo Plus expands upon previous generation rugged systems in two important areas: internal hard drive storage capacity and PCI expansion slots. In order to meet the requirements of key customers in the defense sector, NextComputing extended the existing Vigor Evo chassis and increased the number of PCI expansion slots to accommodate more drives and open-standards PCI Express and PCI-X cards. The result is a system that can support an even wider range of applications that require high-capacity, high-speed storage, multiple PCI cards such as RAID controllers or data capture cards, or both storage and PCI expansion.

Vigor Evo Plus technical highlights include:

* Rugged mil-anodized external chassis and shock-mounted internal chassis
* 1 or 2 energy-efficient, server-class Intel® Xeon® processors
* Up to 16GB ECC RAM
* Internal storage capacity nearing 11TB (terabytes)
* Up to six (6) full-length, full-height PCI Express and PCI-X slots
* Integrated 17-inch HD display
* Optional 2nd and 3rd "swing-out" displays for panoramic viewing
* Screen-less versions available – ideal for embedded applications such as vehicle mounted servers
* System weight starting at 35 lbs.

"Our Vigor series rugged portable workstations and servers have been known in the industry for their top-end performance and flexible, modular design approach which allows the systems to be extremely versatile, while remaining small, lightweight, and efficient," says Bob Labadini, President & CTO of NextComputing. "Our unique FleXtreme architecture allows us to adapt our products quickly to changing market needs. The Vigor Evo Plus is a perfect example of this engineering philosophy, and was designed to satisfy the compute-intensive requirements of today's C4ISR programs."
About NextComputing

Based in Nashua, NH, NextComputing is a unique technology company specializing in extreme-performance portables and dense streaming rackmount computers. Its open-standards, modular systems are used throughout many industries for a range of professional applications including real-time 3D visualization, high-throughput data streaming, and high-end application demonstration. For more information, visit www.nextcomputing.com.