Intel reels in Cray's supercomputer interconnect biz Intel really is taking networking and system interconnects very seriously, and is buying the interconnect hardware business from massively parallel supercomputer maker Cray for $140m. The move is something of a surprise to us outside of Cray, Intel, and the government supercomputer labs that pay the bills at the supercomputer …
$140 Million for the fastest chip interconnect on the planet... and 74 people to boot... Cray sold out, period. The upcoming quarter would have probably been a real loser so they had to do something. This is a very strange move indeed. AMD buys Seamicro to kick Intel in the teeth, and Intel buys the Cray Interconnect to kick AMD in the teeth.. Teeth bashing at its finest....
The Cloud virtualisation and HPC markets are all about large numbers of tightly integrated cores.
From Intels point of view it makes a lot of sense to integrate the network onto the CPU (either directly or via a chip stack) and with AMD going this route they can't afford not to.
If the CPU manufactures start integrating networks then the independent HPC network vendors are doomed in the long term.
Cray needs Intel so its a much better deal to sell them the technology than to try to compete with them.
It sunk in, but Cray's interconnect business doesn't look like much of a bargain at $140m to me. Small customer base, little to differentiate it from mass-market interconnects, patent minefield surrounding it on all sides. Doomed. As for Instagram WTF is it and why should I care ?
I just listened to the investor's call: http://investors.cray.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=98390&p=irol-irhome
Business folks are really messed up: They are touting the savings they got by migrating the employees to Intel. When you sell the most significant technology that you are still holding on for 140 mil and then brag about savings from losing employees, what's there to say? What's left at Cray 'The Supercomputer Company' if it nickel and dimes all its differentiating technologies?
Because that differentiating technology wasn't going to be differentiating forever. This is a smart move if one takes a step back and looks at the big picture. Cray has a history of either going bankrupt or selling itself off once it finds out that its differentiating technology falls behind whats available on the shelf. With this deal, at least Cray has the opportunity to avoid the potential bankruptcy/sell off trap that it fell into in the past.
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