Computerworld wonders what the heck the DoD was thinking

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Although they put it more politely, in this article which ran on Friday at Computerworld.com.

SGI logoBy February, Silicon Graphics Inc. was in deep trouble. It was shedding employees and continuing to loose money — yet it announced that it had just signed a $40 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense.

…But Cray Henry, director of the DOD’s High-Performance Computing Modernization Program, said his department was aware that SGI’s “financial situation was not as strong as we would have liked,” Henry said. But they believed the company was still “financially responsive.”

Henry goes on to argue that the DoD had done business “without incident” during the company’s last restructuring, and that SGI offered the “most compelling solution” in the most recent acquisition.

Rackable and SGI hope to close the by the end of May, if the deal meets court approval. A case has been filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. “There will be significant uncertainty through May,” Henry, said, while the companies and courts sort it out. “But to date the active participants have committed to support our needs and they are demonstrating that commitment through active and ongoing production and delivery of systems and services,” he said.

Tip o’ the hat to a helpful reader who sent in that pointer.

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  1. […] SGI’s systems in the field? SGI has lots of systems currently deployed, and even has systems yet to be deployed.  While Rackable is taking over, there’s nothing to say they have to honor the existing […]

Comments

  1. Cray (and Bo) don’t know HPC… One can only hope for the that the new administration takes a closer look at who is steering the DoD MOD program and then compare contrast it against other Gov HPC programs (NOAA, DoE, etc).