One of the reasons behind Silicon Graphics Inc’s spectacular fall from grace was its ill advised acquisition of Cray Research Inc back in February 1996 (CI No 2,860), so Sun Microsystems Inc must be rubbing its hands in glee that it chose the one part of Cray that was doing well. Sun took on the Solaris on Sparc line of Cray servers which Silicon Graphics wasn’t interested in, only three months after the original sale (CI No 2,916). Now Sun says it has expanded the manufacturing capacity of its Beaverton, Oregon plant, where the Cray-based Starfire servers are produced, by 50% in order to cope with the strong demand.
