Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!apple.com!desnoyer
From: desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ATTACK OF KILLER MICROS
Message-ID: <4790@internal.Apple.COM>
Date: 17 Oct 89 17:08:54 GMT
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
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References:<35825@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <127@csinc.UUCP> <33802@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <128@csinc.UUCP>

> > In my experience, gov't labs are very cost conscious.  I could tell a 
> > lot of stories on this.  Suffice it to say that many people who have come 
> > to gov't labs from private industry get frustrated with just how cost 
> > conscious the gov't can be. (almost an exact quote: "In my last company, 
> > if we needed another 10GBytes, all we had to do was ask, and they bought 
> > it for us."  That was when 10 GBytes cost $300 K.)  The reason 
> > supercomputer are used so much is that they get the  job done more 
> > cheaply.  

From what I know of DOD procurement (my father works for a US Navy lab) 
one factor may be that the time and effort needed to justify spending 
$25,000 of Uncle Sam's money on a super-micro, along with the effort of 
spec'ing it as sole-source or taking bids, is no doubt far more than 
1/400th the effort needed to procure a $10M supercomputer. 

                                      Peter Desnoyers
                                      Apple ATG
                                      (408) 974-4469