Cray Computer Corp has all of Seymour’s fans worried – he did it once at Control Data Corp, where he designed the first supercomputers that so embarrassed IBM Corp back in 1964, and he did it again at Cray Research Inc, but can he really do it a third time and save his Cray Computer Corp from the crowded graveyard of dashed computer company dreams? Cray Computer is now focusing on government laboratory projects, chief financial officer William Skolout told the comference, saying We think that will give us the credibility that’s necessary to then enter into the commercial market; the company is concentrating on two areas in the government sector – competitive solicitations from national laboratories and specialised projects; it is also studying the replacement market for Cray-2 supercomputers of which there are about 25 still in operation worldwide – It’s fairly easy to slide a Cray-2 out and slide a Cray-3 in from a software and user standpoint, he said; the high-performance, high-end supercomputing market recorded about $1,000m in revenue a year, of which about 80% belonged to Cray Research – but there was still growth in demand from the weather forecasting and the environmental research and monitoring sectors, the Colorado Springs, Colorado firm is betting.
