After this morning’s post on the departure of Sr. VP Ian Miller from Cray, I sent a note to Cray asking them if they could give me any insight into what was going on. I fully expected a “no comment,” but they surprised me.
According to a company spokesman Miller’s departure signals a move by Cray to create a single product group that integrates the CX product line with the high-end XT/XE products. From Cray’s email response to me
As we have built the Cray CX business (including building up our reseller partners and the introduction of the Cray CX1000) and launched the Cray XTm line, we have found an increasing number of synergies between these two product lines. This was not the case when we originally had just the high-end Cray XT supercomputers and the low-end Cray CX1 deskside system. We are now bringing together these two teams to better realize the synergies of having product offerings that span the HPC market. We will still maintain all of our product offerings: the Cray CX1 products, Cray CX1000, Cray XTm, Cray XT and the Cray XE systems.
In terms of the marketing role, Cray points out that the day-to-day management of that operation will continue to be handled by Christy Adkinson. Adkinson has been in that role for quite a while, so I w0uld expect continuity in the near term for Cray’s marketing approach. She will begin reporting to Bolding following Miller’s departure in August.
Oh, and I wanted to include this last bit from the email as well
Ian Miller has done a great job during his time with the company, and we thank him for his creativity, leadership and contributions to Cray.
I can vouch for that. In my various interactions with Cray I got to work with Ian a bit, and always found him an affable, capable fellow. We wish him luck.
Seems like deja view. I used to work for Control Data when they decided to go down from what was the super computers of their day (Cyber 170) into laboratory sized systems. Then with Cray who have tried the low end more than once.
What they never seemed to realize is is it’s not just the name. The CDC/Cray person on site model of support can never work when you go down market and you have to have a well constructed, low cost, support plan. I’ve seen small systems sold with an impractical support contract too many times to count.