Elaborating on its comments about deteriorating market conditions (CI No 1,228), Cray Research Inc says that the slowing US economy has delayed both government and commercial orders for supercomputers, and the dearth of business has increased competition from IBM with the Vector Facility on the 3090s, and from Convex Computer Corp: Cray president Marcello Gumicio also told the Wall Street Journal that the company was under increasing internal pressure to two down and mix it with the likes of Convex by coming out with – lower margin – machines in the $2m to $2.5m price bracket, against a present base price of $5m; the depressing outlook sliced $2.25 off the Cray share price which fell to $41.875.
