Cray nails a large contract

As InsideHPC reports, Cray has nailed a large DoD contract. Good for Cray. Sadly they did report not that great earnings recently, and some publications have been beating on them a bit.

Cray is a good company. They have vision, and solid products. They are differentiated. They are not the low end of the market, though with a little work, I bet they could address it (and do so within their vision). I wish them well, and hope that this new win is the harbinger of more. Cray doesn’t directly compete with Dell, with HP, and others. To a degree they are competing with IBM (Bluegene). But the cost structures for those systems are much higher than the lower end systems. HPC has been, and will continue to move downmarket. Onto desktops. The top end of the market will continue to decline in size. I hope Cray figures out how to move its technology down market into a wider possible distribution, without directly competing with Dell et al. As I noted before, I believe it is possible. Unlike SGI, I do believe Cray will be with us for quite a while. They are known to be adept learners, and have swam in very difficult waters.