future for cray???

[Albert Viall]

In article <1991Mar8.132121.22826 at phoenix.pub.uu.oz.au>, billy at phoenix.pub.uu.oz.au (Jeff Coleman) writes:
> i read (correct me if i'm wrong) that Chen(the main force behind the x/y 
> series) has left the company ... what does this mean in terms of the future
> for cray after the Y..will there be a Z ??
> or a radical change of design

Jeff,
  You are not wrong, and that news is about 2 years old. Steve Chen is heading
up an ambitious project in co-operation with IBM. From what I have read, the
SSI project is beginning to feel the pinch of budget and deadline overruns,
(this information from SuperComputing Review). IBM has more than one 
supercomputer project going on, (i.e. 3090 vectorizing, etc) and I would
imagine that Big Blue isn't in a position to flush all revenues into Chen's
R&D.
  To equate Cray Research with only one or two people lacks doing the company
justice by a long-shot. True, Seymour and Chen(tauted as the new 'Seymour'),
are a very flavorful part of Cray history. But, Cray Research continues to
dominate the market in almost every respect; without them.  This is due to
the teamwork and dedication which is prevalent in all the employees who work
at Cray, from the management level, down. One thing I have observed since the
beginning of my employment here,(which hasn't been all that long), is that 
Cray Research is the biggest LITTLE company around. And I hope it stays on that
track. I have quite a bit of faith in John Rollwagen and his staff to steer
Cray on it's path, even with the potential for major competition in the coming
years from such areas as the Japanese, Convex, SSI, and Seymour himself(CCC).

 Back to your question, (about time, this was beginning to become a tear-
jerker. :-)); the future after the 'Y', in my opinion looks quite bright. For
one thing, it's a little early to consider the 'Y', (or in some cases, the 'X'),over the hill just yet. With the improved Model-E IOS's for the 'Y', the end
throughput to and from the cray is improved many times over, compared to the
old Model-D. Cray IS working on a new system, but that is all that I can tell
you at this point. (In fact, it's running as I write this) And it won't be
called the 'Z'-MP. At least I hope not, it sounds too cutesy.

 I can't get into any other details. If you happened to watch any of the Gulf
War news briefings on CNN, you would know that the same rules apply here.

Cheers,
-- Al
alv at cray.com

-- 
Albert Viall                                            alv at pancake.cray.com
Corporate Computing and Networks		
Cray Research, Inc.   Eagan, MN