So little has been heard from Steve Chen’s Supercomputer Systems Inc in the past couple of years that people have been wondering if the company still existed: the good news is that it’s alive and well in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is even considering an initial public offering of shares – and IBM Corp, which holds a large minority stake, will be marketing and supporting the SS-1 when it comes out. The bad news is that there is still no news on the machine. Steve Chen broke cover at Supercomputing ’92 to give a progress report, but when asked when his company would produce a machine, said only My answer is very simple, soon, I hope very soon. Chen later confirmed that IBM will exclusively market and support the machine once it is available, lending the lie to gossip that the company was ready to give up on its investment in the company. Irving Wlawdsky-Berger, IBM’s assistant general manager for supercomputing, denied the rumours. We have not thought of pulling out, he told Reuter. We have our fingers crossed that all the right things will happen and we hope they will be a big success. He declined to give details on the machine and Chen would say only that his new system is not the design that Cray Research Inc rejected, leading to Chen quitting Cray to start his own company. On the likelihood of an initial public offering to raise additional cash to finish development and prepare the machine for market, the company refused to comment. IBM’s investment in Supercomputing Systems has never been disclosed, but it is estimated that the company needed at least $200m to get this far; IBM is a general partner but has less than 50%. Four other investors, believed to be corporations or potential customers, have also invested an undisclosed amount in it.
