It`s time for high availability: fashion trendsetter Fossil orders Unisys ES7000 server for round-the-clock e-mail service

Fossil Inc., the fast-growing marketer of fashion watches and accessories, is the latest new customer to order a Unisyse-@ction Enterprise Server ES7000. The powerful new system will enable Fossil to optimize its e-mail system and provide round-the-clock availability to support the company`s rapid sales growth.

The Unisys ES7000 furnishes the capacity and reliability needed to maintain uninterrupted e-mail service to Fossil`s users in the United States. Ultimately, Fossil will use Unisys ES7000 server technology to consolidate e-mail across its global operations.

With strong sales growth, Fossil`s network of conventional smaller, distributed e-mail servers was rapidly becoming overloaded. Electronic messaging plays a central role in key Fossil business operations such as order fulfillment, making uninterrupted e-mail availability vital to the company`s success. To address this need, Fossil will use the ES7000 to redeploy its enterprise Microsoft Exchange electronic messaging system, consolidating the workload of smaller servers to simplify systems administration and improve server scalability. Systems administrators will have a single view of all processing activity, making it easier to spot and remedy problems before they affect the availability of the mail system. The sale to Fossil was secured by Comark, Inc., a major Unisys ES7000 reseller and provider of technology solutions to the small- and medium-business market, government, education and large enterprises. Fossil`s purchase of the ES7000 not only exemplifies accelerated Unisys ES7000 order growth, but also shows the appeal of the ES7000 enterprise server to customers outside the existing Unisys base. Of the ES7000 systems sold to date, 45 percent represent new business and new clients for Unisys, and 40 percent have been marketed through non-direct channels such as Comark.

"With electronic messaging increasingly becoming critically important to day-to-day operations, we needed a server platform that would grow with our business and provide built-in features for maintaining mail availability," said Kannan Rajagopalan, director of Networking and Communications Services, Fossil, Inc. "The Unisys ES7000 provides that level of mainframe-class scalability and reliability, combined with the superior economics and ease of use for which Windows-based computing is known."

Within its Unisys ES7000 server, Fossil can set up partitions, or "servers within a server." This enables Fossil to create a backup server to which e-mail processing can be transferred in the event that the primary e-mail partition fails. This capability works with other ES7000 features for high availability, such as redundant components, dual power domains and an integrated systems monitoring subsystem, enabling Fossil to provide users with the highest levels of e-mail availability.

"Companies can achieve substantially improved service levels, realize significant cost savings and boost IT staff efficiency by consolidating the workload of critical functions like e-mail onto a centrally managed server," said Peter Samson, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Server Business, Unisys Systems and Technology. "With its ES7000-based implementation, Fossil is establishing itself as a leader in adopting the most advanced server technology to further its e-business strategy."

Fossil: A Fashion Leader

Fossil designs, develops, markets and distributes fashion watches and other accessories principally under the FOSSIL and RELIC brand names. In addition, the Company holds the exclusive worldwide license to produce and sell watch collections under the Emporio Armani, DKNY and Diesel brand names. The Company`s products are sold primarily through department stores and other major retailers both domestically and in over 85 countries worldwide.

Visit the Company`s website http://www.fossil.com/at for more information.

The Unisys e-@ction Enterprise Server ES7000

The ES7000 provides an array of computing capabilities required for enterprise-class e-business computing and well known to users of large-scale computers, but unprecedented in computing environments based on Microsoft and Intel technology. Designed for the power of future Intel IA-64 Itanium processors, the ES7000 is based on Unisys revolutionary Cellular MultiProcessing (CMP) architecture. The ES7000 accommodates up to 32 Intel Pentium III Xeon processors, which can be field-upgraded to Intel IA-64 Itanium processors when that technology becomes available or combined with Itanium processors in the same server. These advantages enable the ES7000 to match the performance of UNIX systems in enterprise-class e-business and other critical applications at a fraction of the price.