Cray Research Inc has won round one of its anti-dumping allegations against NEC Corp after the International Trade Commission ruled yesterday there are grounds for a full investigation (CI No 2,966). The Japan Electronic Development Association (JEDA) replied by claiming that Japan’s supercomputer market is more open than in the US, an accusation Cray finds ridiculous. Cray’s director of competitive analysis Earl Joseph told Computergram that the Silicon Graphics Inc unit, which claims over 75 % of the supercomputer market worldwide, has only secured one of the last 12 Japanese government supercomputer contracts. The Japanese market is totally closed to us, Joseph said. But across the Pacific, the JEDA claims no Japanese-built supercomputer has ever been sold to the US government. The next step in the investigation will come in early January, when the US Department of Commerce will make an initial decision about whether dumping occurred. In March the department will make a final decision and in late April the International Trade Commission will determine whether the US was injured by the alleged dumping. The commission would then issue a penalty, which could effectively lock NEC out of the US supercomputers market. The punishment is generally an extra duty on future products sold into the US commensurate with the amount a company undercharged; for example if the actual cost of the system was 400% more than NEC was found to have charged – as Cray claims – then it would be required to add $100m to the price of a $25m supercomputer, according to Cray. NEC did not return phone calls yesterday.
