fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Marty Fouts) (10/02/87)
(Mr Chen's last name is spelled with an 'e', not an 'i'.) The Wall Street Journal article leads one to believe that Steve Chen wanted to start with "sand" rather than chips, but this isn't even that uncommon at CRI. Seymour Cray himself started with "sand" on at least three machines: The Cray 1, the Cray 2, and the Cray 3, which is said to be a GaAs machine. Steve Chen has been willing to start with a previous design in the past. As mentioned in the Cray press release, Chen is the principle architect of the X-MP which was a follow on to the Cray 1, and of the Y-MP, which will be the succesor to the Y-MP. According to a Cray press release, Chen's project was taking more money than Cray was willing to pay. This is not an unusuall business decision. Ask Dr. Amdahl why he left IBM sometime. I would be surprised if Cray and Chen stay on too good terms if Chen can find ready funding for his own effort, and I would be suprises if he has any trouble finding funding. marty
nelson@ohlone.UUCP (10/02/87)
In article <2956@ames.arpa>, fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Marty Fouts) writes: > The Wall Street Journal article leads one to believe that Steve Chen > wanted to start with "sand" rather than chips, but this isn't even > that uncommon at CRI. Seymour Cray himself started with "sand" on at > least three machines: The Cray 1, the Cray 2, and the Cray 3, which is > said to be a GaAs machine. The brief article in last Friday's Journal is really very poor. Don't believe anything it has to say. On the other hand, the articles that came out just after the announcement 4 weeks ago were rather reasonable I thought. As has been noted many times, Seymour Cray is not a big risk taker or a 'leading edge' technologist. He tends to build machines with proven components bought from third parties. He *IS* a real genius at packaging, cooling, and design. Steve Chen was much more agressive about developing technology in house, rather than buying it off the shelf. This has higher potential payoffs, but of course is riskier and more expensive (e.g. Trilogy). This comparison between Seymour and Steve needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since the Cray-3 *is* being built out of GaAs (still pretty new/leading-edge), but it should give you the idea. Anyway, the board of directors thought Steve's MP project was too expensive, too risky, and taking too long. Steve was for the most part unwilling to compromise on the design/budget/timeline for the MP, so the project was cancelled. If anyone has a specific question (that has a non-company private answer), I'll be happy to tell you what I can. However, since I am a part of the cancelled project, my machine may go away fairly soon. Also, lll-lcc has been flaky for awhile; try ihnp4 if lll-lcc bounces you. ----------------------- Bron Nelson {ihnp4, lll-lcc!lll-tis}!ohlone!nelson Not the opinions of Cray Research
suhler@im4u.UUCP (10/02/87)
In article <2956@ames.arpa> fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov.UUCP (Marty Fouts) writes: >According to a Cray press release, Chen's project was taking more >money than Cray was willing to pay. This is not an unusuall business >decision. Ask Dr. Amdahl why he left IBM sometime. I heard Amdahl explain it in a talk back in '76 or '77. It wasn't the development costs so much as revenues. With IBM's pricing structure, they made less money the bigger the machine. It reached a point where if Amdahl had built and IBM had sold the machines he wanted to build, IBM would have had many customers switch from lesser machines to the faster, thus cutting total revenues. The only way he could build what he wanted was to start a company that had nothing to lose. -- Paul Suhler suhler@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU 512-474-9517/471-3903
urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP (10/03/87)
[] In article <2956@ames.arpa>, fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Marty Fouts) writes: > According to a Cray press release, Chen's project was taking more > money than Cray was willing to pay. This is not an unusuall business > decision. Ask Dr. Amdahl why he left IBM sometime. > Earlier this summer, Dr. Amdahl was asked this question at a lecture given at TUCC (Triangle Universities Computing Center), the (UNC) Chapel Hill - (NCSU) Raleigh - (Duke) Durham North Carolina joint computing facility. He said that he left IBM because of a conflict of interest situation. It seems that he became an official in a competing? computer company and was called up for it. He had to make a choice. The rest is history. Disclaimer: The responsibility for writing this is mine. I hope it doesn't offend anyone. ----------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP , urjlew@tucc.bitnet or urjlew@tucc.tucc.edu (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet) tel. (919)-962-9107
urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP (10/03/87)
In article <2184@im4u.UUCP>, suhler@im4u.UUCP (Paul A. Suhler) writes: > In article <2956@ames.arpa> fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov.UUCP (Marty Fouts) writes: > >According to a Cray press release, Chen's project was taking more > >money than Cray was willing to pay. This is not an unusuall business > >decision. Ask Dr. Amdahl why he left IBM sometime. > > I heard Amdahl explain it in a talk back in '76 or '77. It wasn't the > development costs so much as revenues. With IBM's pricing structure, > they made less money the bigger the machine. It reached a point where > if Amdahl had built and IBM had sold the machines he wanted to build, > IBM would have had many customers switch from lesser machines to the > faster, thus cutting total revenues. The only way he could build > what he wanted was to start a company that had nothing to lose. Dr. Amdahl repeated the same statements in a talk he gave earlier this summer at TUCC as a part of his presentation on behalf of TRILOGY. He spoke on Amdahls law and also enterpreneurship. However the arguements above were used to illustrate what creates an opportunity for an enterpreneur. These may have been the reasons why Amdahl was feeling frustrated at IBM. But according to him, the reason that he left was because of a conflict of interest situation. He said that he had become involved with a competing? startup computing company, as an officer?, and was called up for it by IBM. He had to make a choice. And the rest is history. Disclaimer: The responsibility for writing this is mine. I hope that I have not offended anyone. ----------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP , urjlew@tucc.bitnet or urjlew@tucc.tucc.edu (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet) tel. (919)-962-9107
mitch@stride1.UUCP (Thomas P. Mitchell) (10/07/87)
In article <365@ohlone.UUCP> nelson@ohlone.UUCP (Bron Nelson) writes: >In article <2956@ames.arpa>, fouts@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Marty Fouts) writes: >> The Wall Street Journal article leads one to believe that Steve Chen > >The brief article in last Friday's Journal is really very poor. Don't >Trilogy). To stockholders there was a lot of information (press) made available in the past year and a half about the competing projects within the company. The most important was that the projects were competing (there would be a winner). Then the announcement a while back regarding the release of the GaAs foundry and the terms of the release were a clue that the competition was on the bell lap (at least on this heat). The terms under which Steve Chen is 'leaving' look to have much the same ring as the terms that Cray 'left' under. We will not know for sure of course until the dust settles. After all what is dust but very small bits of sand. Thomas P. Mitchell (mitch@stride1.Stride.COM) Phone: (702) 322-6868 TWX: 910-395-6073 MicroSage Computer Systems Inc. a Division of Stride Micro. Opinions expressed are probably mine.