The announcement a week ago that the company was seeking new equity financing (CI No 1,923) made it pretty clear that the end was nigh for Littleton, Massachusetts-based massively parallel systems builder Alliant Computer Systems Corp, and the company announced yesterday that the boom duly fell on Friday when it fired all but 60 of its 225 employees and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company, building scientific Unix machines around the Intel Corp 80860 RISC, will suspend development and most direct sales of new computer systems, while continuing to provide service and sales of systems and expansion products to its installed customer base of some 600 worldwide. About half the 60 remaining employees are at the Massachusetts headquarters, the rest are in worldwide service locations. A small management group will remain to prepare and manage a reorganisation plan while the company is in bankruptcy court protection.
