Speedy Cray may slow its pace
Article Abstract:
Cray Research Inc faces growing competition, especially from manufacturers of minisupercomputers, machines with as much as a quarter of the performance of supercomputers but at a cost of $2.5 million as opposed to $25 million. The leader in the minisupercomputer market is Convex Computer Corp, with revenues that grew 52 percent from 1988 to 1989, while Cray's revenues flattened. Cray is reportedly planning to enter the low-end machine market with an air-cooled machine costing under $1 million. While more industries are experimenting with the commercial use of supercomputers and creating a viable market for low-end products, Cray's market entry would mean lower profit margins, higher marketing expenses and a costly investment in mass production equipment. This would mean a considerable change for a company that has always prided itself on producing small quantities of handcrafted systems.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1989
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A remade I.B.M. reinvents the mainframe
Article Abstract:
IBM is telling consultants that it will soon unveil the SP-1, its first Power Parallel microprocessor-based parallel-processing mainframe computer for scientific supercomputing. IBM's feuding workstation and mainframe divisions collaborated to design the new system in under one year. Competition from DEC and HP spurred IBM to base the reinvented mainframe system on low-cost, high-performance microprocessors instead of IBM's traditional custom-designed processors. SP-1 pricing will begin at $300,000 for an eight-microprocessor machine and range up to $2.7 million for a 64-processor model with a Vulcan data switch. The new machine will provide up to 8 GFLOPS of processor speed at lower cost than a similarly-performing Cray supercomputer, and run the Unix operating system. IBM is also developing a less expensive microprocessor-based replacement for its commercial 3090 mainframe series.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1993
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Abe Peled's secret start-up at IBM: with an end-run on lethargy, his team created a computer in just two years
Article Abstract:
IBM's Abe Peled, working with a specially chosen team of programmers and engineers, has developed the Power Visualization System, a new graphics supercomputer. The development work was accomplished in only two years. The computer is designed specifically to translate scientists' tables of numerical data into color images and was developed quickly by working outside of IBM's traditional structure and channels in a manner comparable to the way products are developed by entrepreneurs in California's Silicon Valley. The Power Visualization System will find uses ranging from the creation of three-dimensional animated designs of new automobiles to simulations of complex phenomena such as the ozone hole in the atmosphere over the South Pole.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1991
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