Stratus Technologies Inc. Monday announced a pair of new servers that take advantage of the company's strength in making servers based on Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems more reliable.

Stratus has started shipping the new ftServer 6500, which can be configured as a one-, two- or four-processor system, and the smaller ft5240, which can be set up as a one- or two-processor. While the servers use widely available Xeon processors from Intel, they also include Stratus' specialized technology for keeping hardware up and running. Stratus' servers include redundant components and processors that handle management tasks, said Larry Sherman, director of technical marketing at Stratus.

"These two new models put us at the forefront of Intel's processor technology," Sherman said.

The new systems are targeted toward businesses willing to pay a little extra to keep their business software running at all times. The beefier ftServer 6500 can handle applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management and databases. The smaller ftServer 5240 is geared for e-mail and e-commerce applications.

Other server vendors such as IBM Corp. often tout the high availability features in their Intel-based systems, but Stratus' servers come with redundant components across the board, including the main processors. Stratus has had success, for example, selling into financial institutions, computer-aided dispatch centers and call centers where data must be readily available.

An ftServer 6500 with one 1.6GHz Xeon chip, 1G byte of memory and 36G bytes of storage starts at US$75,000. A fully loaded system will run up to $130,000, Sherman said.

The ftServer 5240 with one 2.4GHz Xeon, 1G byte of memory and 36G bytes of storage starts at $50,000.

Both servers ship with Windows 2000 Advanced Server.