One early customer is Rob Legato, the visual effects supervisor who won an Academy Award for his work on the Martin Scorsese-directed hit motion picture “Hugo.” Legato will be talking about ioFX with Fusion-io chief scientist and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at a conference in Las Vegas next week.

Fusion does some cool stuff with flash memory. Here’s the part where I roll out the old metaphor that has served me so well: In pretty much any computer, you can think of the processor as a fast-moving, highly efficient, type-A personality, constantly in a hurry, and always waiting impatiently for the rest of the system to give it more work to do. The slowpoke in the deal is the hard drive, which, though it’s already spinning at a super fast rate, just can’t get data to the processor fast enough. So the processor sits around, tapping its foot and looking at its watch, waiting for the other parts of the system that feed it data to work to keep up.

In high-performance computing, where there’s more data to be crunched than in most average computing situations, this is sort of a big deal. You want the processor to be as busy as possible — mainly because the systems are so expensive, and you want to get your money’s worth out of them — but also because jobs get done faster.

So Fusion-io’s stock in trade is a series of insert cards that bring flash memory right up next to the processor. The flash chips grab great big armloads of data and hold on to it, handing it off to the processor in a way that keeps it happy and busy and not impatiently waiting — at least not so much.

We’ve seen the technology brought to bear at places like Credit Suisse, which added Fusion’s flash cards to its trading systems. And its technology is also used in data centers belonging to Facebook and Apple.

On top of that, Fusion has relationships with all the big server vendors: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and SuperMicro all sell systems with Fusion-io on board.

Workstations are essentially heavily tricked-out PCs that are used primarily in two professions: Animation and special-effects work for movies and TV and computer-assisted design and modeling, used by folks who design buildings and cars and planes and pretty much anything else you can think of. They have the same problem that servers have — agitated processors constantly waiting for the rest of the system to catch up with them.

At this point, none of the workstation vendors are offering the card as an option, but if you’ve got a professional workstation — like, say, an Apple Mac Pro, which has three PCI Express slots — you might add one of these cards and speed up your work. In the meantime, the company is working with workstation vendors to get the ioFX insert cards certified. My guess is there will be more than a few visual artists who won’t bother to wait.

Fusion-io shares are up almost 11 percent — or $2.64 — to $27.30, as of 11 am ET; not so much on this news — workstations are kind of a low-volume market — but on an analyst report from Piper Jaffray suggesting that Cisco Systems may be close to a deal to add Fusion-io’s flash technology to its Unified Computing System platform.

The report goes on to suggest that Cisco could, over the next three or four quarters, become one of Fusion’s bigger customers, along with Facebook and Apple, and could account for more than 10 percent of Fusion’s business — which could, in turn, lead to a doubling of revenue this year. For the record, sales were $197.2 million in Fusion’s fiscal 2011. Do the math.

Among the headline features are deep integration with Apple’s iCloud service, and with Twitter. And several features from iOS devices, like Messages and Reminder, are making their debut on the Mac, and will create a more unified experience among Macs, iPads and iPhones.

The release, which is coming only a year after Lion debuted last summer, might just indicate a speeding up of the cadence at which Apple does Mac software upgrades. Usually there’s an interval of 18 months to 24 months between major OS upgrades. That makes this announcement a bit of a surprise. Does that mean we can expect another one about 18 months from now? We’ll see.

Here’s a quick rundown of the 10 new features:

iCloud built in: Mountain Lion will be the first version of OS X built with iCloud fully integrated. Documents in the Cloud is a new feature that will allow documents you create and edit on the Mac to sync up and readily be available on iPhones and iPads. Changes you make in the document on one device will automatically appear on the other. You’ll be able to use iCloud from the moment you start up your Mac and sign in with an Apple ID.

Messages: It’s crazy to think about it, but iMessage users on the iPhone and iPad have sent something like 26 billion messages in only the few months it has been available. Messages is the new instant messaging application that will replace iChat. It will unify the experience between the Mac and iOS devices, and will still be compatible with services like Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Jabber, but will also bring iMessages into the Mac. Conversations stay up to date across all devices. It supports photos and videos. Also? There’s a FaceTime button.

Twitter: Twitter is also deeply integrated into Mountain Lion. You’ll be able to tweet directly from within several applications, sharing Web site addresses, photos and videos. Central to this is something Apple calls the Tweet Sheet, which you call up from the Share menu. It grabs what you want to share on Twitter and you write your tweet from directly within the Mac OS. And as cool as this is, it’s notable also for what it’s not: Facebook integration. Expect lots of speculation around that.

Share Sheets: Sharing is kind of a big deal these days, so it makes sense that the ability to do it — whether on Twitter or via email or any one of the cloud services out there — would be available on the Mac. There’s a new Share button in Safari and in other applications that makes it easy to send a photo to a friend via email or to Flickr, or a video to Vimeo or to another computer via AirDrop.

Notification Center: The dashboard of notices saying what’s going on in iOS is coming to the Mac. Similar to how you reach it on the iPhone — a swipe down along the length of the screen — it will appear on the Mac with a two-finger swipe from the right edge of the trackpad, and the list will appear on the right side of the screen. When you get a notification from an application — say, an email has arrived, or a download is finished, or a calendar reminder is going off — you can see them all in one place. Also, short messages with notifications appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and then fade away after a few seconds. It reminds me a great deal of a third-party application enhancer I use, called Growl.

Reminders: Another popular iOS app is being added to the Mac. Your to-do list remains synced across the Mac, iPhone and iPad, and you can add reminders that pop up throughout the day, so you don’t forget.

Notes: The all-purpose “take this down for later” application gets the Mac treatment. Soon you’ll be able to drag URLs into a note. And thanks to iCloud, they’ll be synced across Mac, iPhone and iPad. You’ll also be able to “pin” a note to your desktop, meaning it will stay open even if you close the main Notes application. Notes also has a Share button.

Game Center: Long a weakness on the Mac, gaming is getting stronger all the time. Games, it turns out, are the most popular software titles on the Mac App store. So it makes sense to bring the Game Center experience from iOS to the Mac. I saw a quick demo, where two people played a racing game against each other — can’t remember which game exactly — one was on the iPad, the other on the Mac. You’ll be able to challenge friends, keep track of your standings on a leaderboard and see what games your friends like. There’s also support for in-game voice chat, so you can talk trash.

Gatekeeper: Expect this feature to be controversial among Mac software developers. Basically, it’s an attempt by Apple to deal with the fact that the one serious security threat it faces is software that looks good at first but turns out to behave badly only after you’ve downloaded and installed it. The new scheme basically sets up a three-tier system, where the user can decide from where they will be allowed to download and install new software. In the most restrictive — or some will argue safest — case, you can set your Mac to allow only software from the Mac App store. As it does with the App Store on iOS devices, Apple vets the software sold there for safety. In the second case — this one not as restrictive — you can install software from sources other than the App Store, but only from developers who have signed up as a known developer. Here, Apple will not have checked the app for safety, but will at least vouch that the developer is known. Developers will have the option of signing up for a Developer ID. This is the part that I think they’ll find a little controversial. Anyway, in the third case, there are no restrictions. You can install software from any developer and any source, much as you can do today.

AirPlay Mirroring: If you have an Apple TV handy, you’ll be able to use your TV as a screen for your Mac — it’s super easy. If they’re on the same wireless network, the Mac will have a simple pulldown menu that makes your TV mirror what’s on the Mac.

Finally, Apple added a lot of new features for the Chinese market. Text input has been improved, and several popular Web services — like Baidu for search, integration with Sina Weibo for Twitter-like sharing and video-sharing with Youku and Tudou — have been built in, in order to make the Mac OS experience a lot more China-friendly than it has been before. Given the Apple madness that has struck that country in recent months, it will certainly find a happy audience.

The one million units is in line with his forecast, and a bit ho-hum given it equals just $400 million annually in revenue on an $88 billion top line. The units might be “significantly higher” if Apple TV had access to the 300,000 apps in the Apple App Store, writes Wu.

“One questions many investors have asked us is how does Apple add multi-touch capability to a TV?” writes Wu. “Our answer is the ability to connect the Magic Trackpad, similar to adding multi-touch to its desktop macs including iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro.”

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Apple’s (AAPL) iMac and Mac Pro lines now offer faster Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processor options, with the last available in a $4,999 configuration with a full dozen Intel Xeon cores. IMacs cost between $1,199 and $1,999.

The long-awaited 27-inch LED Cinema Display boasts 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Optimized for Apple’s latest hardware, it features a built-in iSight video camera, microphone and speakers, 3-port USB 2.0 hub, and a universal MagSafe connector for charging up a MacBook. Price: $999. It ships in September.

Finally, there are the peripherals: An Apple Battery Charger that senses when its batteries are fully charged and adjusts its power usage accordingly ($29.00 with six rechargeable AA NiMH batteries), and a $69 Magic Trackpad that adds to the desktop the same gesture commands supported by the iPhone and iPad.

In an inspired bit of entrail reading this morning, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says Apple (AAPL) may have a libretto of big WWDC announcements. “Other announcements we are picking up that could potentially be made are iTunes.com, a web-based version of its iTunes client, and new Mac refreshes with faster processors and graphics, namely the Mac Pro and MacBook Air, which were last refreshed in March and June 2009, respectively,” he wrote in a note to clients this morning.

An interesting bit of speculation. Certainly, it’s conceivable that the Mac Pro and MacBook Air get updated. As Wu notes, it has been quite a while since the last one. But iTunes.com, the online music service Apple is believed to be building on its Lala.com acquisition? That might be a bit of a stretch, as my colleague Peter Kafka reported in late April.

“Sources tell me that in the past few weeks, Apple has started signaling to the labels that it’s interested in a Web-based version of iTunes, its dominant music retail platform,” Kafka wrote on April 30. “But those conversations are preliminary at best. So if you’re expecting to hear about an ‘iTunes.com’ offering in the near future–like during Apple’s June 7 developer conference–you’re likely to be disappointed.”

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• Gaming WWDC: A New iPhone–But Not on Verizon

This morning Apple (AAPL) refreshed its desktop line, announcing a new Nehalem-based Mac Pro, a more robust Mac mini and four new iMacs, among them, three with 24-inch screens. All three lines boast fundamental enhancements, but also more affordable prices–a feature Apple touted in its marketing materials the way it would a new technology. Consider this pull quote from Apple COO Tim Cook: “Our flagship 24-inch iMac with twice the memory and twice the storage is now available for just $1,499. The Mac mini is not only our most affordable Mac, it’s also the world’s most energy efficient desktop computer.” And this one from Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing: “The new Mac Pro is a significant upgrade and starts at $300 less than before.”

An interesting change from Apple’s standard marketing language, which typically holds its new machines up as “the most incredible desktop computer we’ve ever made” or “our fastest, biggest and brightest” or “the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

These days, Apple’s new Macs are not simply faster and shinier, they’re a bargain as well. “Insanely great!” has become “insanely affordable!” Anyway, on to the specs.

The new Mac Pro is priced at $2,499 for the quad-core version and at $3,299 for the eight-core version, with Nehalem Xeon processors running at 2.93GHz. All feature an updated system architecture that Apple says delivers twice the performance of the previous model.

The new iMac line starts with the 20-inch iMac for $1,199 with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, a 320GB Serial ATA hard drive and Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics. Its 24-inch brethren features a 1920-by-1200-pixel widescreen display that offers 30 percent more screen real estate than the 20-inch model. It offers up to a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and starts at $1,499–the same price as the previous generation 20-inch model.

The new Mac Mini has been outfitted with the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics as Apple’s new MacBooks, something the company says will improve its graphics performance as much as fivefold. Available in two models that start at $599, the mini features a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 4GB of DDR3 1066MHz memory, up to 320GB Serial ATA hard drive, five (!) USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800 and a SuperDrive.

Also receiving a refresh today: Apple’s Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme, which now offer a “guest networking” feature that allows users to create a separate Wi-Fi network just for their friends and supports for simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi. “For maximum range and compatibility, Time Capsule works simultaneously on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, allowing all the devices on the network to use the most efficient band automatically,” Apple explains. “And Time Capsule uses the latest 802.11n wireless technology so you can enjoy up to five times the performance and up to twice the range of 802.11g wireless networks.”

UPDATE: Hardmac is now claiming these new machines could be released as soon as tomorrow.

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• A Post-Macworld Apple Event? History Would Seem to Suggest So

A third of all consumers (33 percent) who said that they were planning on buying a laptop in the next three months intend to buy one of Apple’s MacBooks, and nearly a third of those in the market for a desktop (27 percent) plan to purchase one of its Mac Pros, according to new data from ChangeWave. This, despite an ugly dip in spending that threatens to turn the upcoming holidays into lean ones for all. A solid majority, 59 percent of ChangeWave study respondents, say they will spend less in the next 90 days despite the holidays. Just 10 percent say they will spend more. “There’s been a massive breakdown in consumer spending plans going forward,” said ChangeWave research director Paul Carton. “We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s going to be a very tough holiday season.”

Tougher for some than others, though. Well, one other: Apple (AAPL). “We do see Apple’s numbers looking better going forward, over the next 90 days,” said Carton. “Apple will clearly come out of this as the biggest tree in the forest. They’ll be in extraordinary shape compared to everyone else when things improve. I don’t think that Apple can escape the enormity of this downturn in the short run, but in the big picture, I think [these numbers] are wonderful news for Apple. It’s not easy to increase market share in one of the worst spending environments in years.”

No, it’s not. Though Apple’s steady and significant growth suggests otherwise. As Apple COO Tim Cook noted at the company’s October notebook event, “If you look at the history, the Mac has outgrown the market for the last 14 of 15 quarters.”

This morning Apple announced upgrades to its Mac Pro desktops and Xserve servers. Powering the new machines: one or two of the new quad-core 45 nanometer Penryn-family processors Intel announced at CES yesterday. “The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve ever made,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing. Interestingly, the company’s new Xserve is, according to the press release, Apple’s “most powerful server ever.”

Odd that Apple would announce some of its fastest and most powerful machines the week before Macworld San Francisco. Perhaps Jobs wanted to steal a little bit of buzz from CES, as he did last year with the announcement of the iPhone. In any event, the debut of these new products would seem to make it more likely that Apple will indeed announce updated MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops next week.