Features

As published in HPCWire Field Research: Il Calcolo Tecnico-Scientifico in Italia When I saw the front-page article on HPCwire dealing with “cultural analytics” and a debate that originated in the Renaissance, I knew I had to learn more. Being a dedicated analyst, I flew immediately to Italy to check it out. Or maybe I was…

As published in HPCWire Feast or Famine: A Hungry Analyst’s Review of SC08 It happens every year at the Supercomputing Conference and Expo, whether it’s seafood in Seattle, pierogies in Pittsburgh, or anchos in Austin. Some days it’s a feast, others a famine. For those of you who, like me, used SC08 as an opportunity…

As published in HPCWire I loved Kool-Aid when I was a kid. Not only were the commercials fantastic – admit it, if you were a kid in the 1970s, at some point you crashed through a homemade barrier singing “Oh yeah!” — but it was sweet refreshment on a hot day. My favorite was when…

As published in HPCWire A long-standing concern in HPC is the graying of the industry. That is, new people are not coming in at the skilled positions as older ones retire. (In the sports world this is how championship teams become also-rans in the matter of a few years). Although this issue has been noted…

Models of Economic Success: Can HPC Help Turn Things Around? Global economic turmoil affects us at both organizational and individual levels. As companies cut staff to reduce expenses, investors anxiously review their portfolios. If we lose our jobs, we want savings to fall back on. Let’s face it: a lot of us are in a…

As published in HPCWire Do you know what the saddest part is of Rackable’s attempt to acquire SGI’s assets out of bankruptcy for a paltry $25 million in cash? There would be very little effect on the HPC market as a result. Thanks to a cascading series of problems — bad marketing, operational misfires, bad…

As published in HPCWire With Oracle’s acquisition of Sun for $5.6 billion (net), the company is acquiring, among other assets, an estimated 8.4 percent stake ($627 million) in the traditional HPC server market. The question arises: is this an asset that Oracle will keep/nurture as it moves to integrate Sun into its ongoing product and…

You’ve Got the Brawn; I’ve Got the Brains Intel and Cray have announced a partnership to begin collaboration on the design of a new supercomputer, which could be available in approximately three years. Under the partnership agreement, engineers from each company will work together directly, with the goal of generating a scalable architecture that will…

Acquisitions of SGI, Sun Heading in Opposite Directions for HPC as published in HPCWire Sun and SGI have followed similar trajectories throughout much of their linked histories — parallel parabolas that blazed through several common markets, including technical workstations and HPC, from their explosive Silicon Valley launches in the early 1980s to their financial zeniths…

Musings on Economic Storms and Industry Consolidation as published in HPCWire “Bad economic times lead to industry consolidation/shake-out.” That is one economic rule that actually makes intuitive sense, like small craft are the first to sink in a hurricane, or the speed of light is the same to all observers (OK I admit I’m still…