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1991-04-15
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CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION
WRITTEN STATEMENT
Presented to
U.S. Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation
Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space
CONVEX supports S. 272, the High-Performance Computing Act of
1991, as we believe it will assist U.S. industry in maintaining
leadership in computing technology. We strongly believe this
legislation can positively contribute to one of the biggest threats
facing the United States today: the loss of our international
competitiveness in all technology related businesses. In addition, it
will directly stimulate the supercomputing industry.
Europe and Japan have targeted information technologies for
particular attention, and unless decisive steps are taken to ensure
our continued leadership, the U.S. could be surpassed in a technology
field that we largely pioneered and which is vital to our economic
future.
The real American competitiveness question involves making our
nation's industries competitive. The use of supercomputers is
mandatory to maintaining America's competitive edge in all of our
key industries, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics,
pharmaceuticals, petroleum, etc. -- not just in supercomputing
manufacturing.
We believe the actions called for in S. 272 -- particularly the
acceleration of the development of computer systems and
subsystems, the stimulation of research on software technology, and
the application of high-performance computing to "Grand Challenges"
- - are not only appropriate goals, but vital to maintaining the U.S.
lead in supercomputers and utilizing supercomputer technology in
our high-tech industries and research.
Supercomputers are the fundamental building blocks that contribute
to almost all disciplines across the broadest spectrum of science and
technology. In the 1990's, the way America can stay competitive is
literally to put supercomputing in the hands of the "masses."
Supercomputers are to the modern technologist what the invention
of the microscope was to biologists and the telescope was to
astronomers. In fact, supercomputers enable scientists and
engineers to solve problems for things that are too small, too large,
too quick, too slow, or too dangerous to observe directly. This use in
industry results in new products that are more innovative, safer, and
get to market more quickly. Their use in research results in
fundamental breakthroughs in science that change how we see the
world. The supercomputer is the one common tool across all U.S.
scientific and technological activities that, if put in the hands of
engineers and scientists throughout the United States, can
dramatically sharpen the competitive output of the United States.
Of course, Japanese industry and research institutions totally
understand and believe these concepts. From our perspective, they
have been the fastest nation to purchase CONVEX's latest technology.
Until just recently, there were more of CONVEX's top- of-the-line
supercomputers in Japan than in the United States. American
researchers and engineers believe these concepts also, but access to
supercomputer tools has been limited. S. 272 can be the catalyst to
change this trend.
CONVEX's assessment of the competitive position of the high-
performance computer industry in the U.S. relative to that of Japan is
as follows:
The high-performance computer market is an international market
in which Cray dominates the high-end of the market, and CONVEX
dominates the mid-range market. The Japanese computer
manufacturers, NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi, have high performance, fast
hardware products. But while this is the case, U.S. high performance
computer companies currently maintain the lead in supercomputing
for the following reason: supercomputing is not about hardware, it's
about solving complex problems. The U.S. supercomputer companies
are ahead of foreign competition because we understand there are
aspects to supercomputing solutions:
o Balanced, high-performance hardware: There is more to real
performance than pure megaflops or gigaflops performance.
Unfortunately, that' s how performance is commonly measured but
these definitions must be properly interpreted. There is much more
to useful performance than peak speed, such as software
performance, memory performance, and 1/0 performance. Users
care only about the performance of their applications -- the
problems they specifically solve with their machines -- and this type
of performance is determined by dozens o attributes. In terms of
speed, the Japanese have high peak performance, but that's only a
part of the supercomputing solution.
o Software technology -- Operating systems (UNIX) and
compilers: Maintaining the lead requires being proficient at
several software standards. Companies such as CONVEX and Cray
recognized the emergence of the UNIX standard long ago and
designed their machines for UNIX -- now considered a requirement
in supercomputing. Japanese systems have historically been based on
IBM standards and only now are attempting to migrate to UNIX. Also
superior compiler technology is critical to computing performance
and productivity. American companies and research institutions lead
in this areas, as well.
o Application specific software: Most of the supercomputers
in use today, especially in industry, utilize third-party written
software applications rather than custom-written software
applications. The majority of that third-party software is developed
by U.S. based organizations. CONVEX considers having both a broad
array of application software available on its machines and having
agreements/relationships with the software developers, as critical
elements of its competitive strategy and success. American suppliers
are leading in this crucial area.
o Service and support -- taking care of the customer: This is a
critical component in supercomputing solutions. American companies'
reputations in the area of service and support are superior.
American suppliers utilize direct sales and support organizations in
all major markets and, as such, are closer to the customer. Outside of
Japan, Japanese manufacturers typically use distributors or OEMs for
sales and customer support.
It would be naive to believe that U.S. companies will always be able
to maintain the supercomputer lead for the reasons cited above
without continual development and diligence in these areas. The
Japanese can -- and will, in time -- develop these necessary
strengths. Although CONVEX has been selling its supercomputers
successfully to the Japanese for almost six years now, we also realize
that when, or if, the Japanese companies decide that the
price/performance market niche that CONVEX currently dominates is
a viable and sizable market for Japan, the competitiveness threat
posed by Japan can become very serious.
The biggest threats posed by the Japanese to American
supercomputer companies are:
o The size of the big three Japanese companies is over $89
billion, which provides substantial financial staying power. This
gives them the ability to mask the success or lack of success of their
supercomputer products versus U.S. supercomputer companies,
whose existence relies solely on the success of their supercomputers.
o Furthermore, they can afford to not be profitable in the
supercomputer market segment for a very long period of time and
can buy market share by excessive and unreasonable discounting,
while public U.S. companies are forced to live by quarter to quarter
reporting, which represents the results of a single technology focus.
o The big three Japanese computer companies also dominate the
semiconductor industry, including advanced semiconductor research
and development required to build supercomputers.
o The cost of capital differs substantially for U.S. versus
Japanese companies.
In light of these factors, staying competitive in today's global
supercomputer market will take a concerted effort by American
companies, as well as cooperation and constructive stimulation by
government. Certainly, the High-Performance Computing Act of
1991 will be a positive contribution in this direction.
Comments on the bill. S. 272
General Comments
CONVEX enthusiastically supports this legislation and commends it to
you for your favorable consideration and swift passage in the House.
We fully support the idea of a "National High-Performance
Computing Program." There are several provisions of the bill on
which I would like to comment and highlight.
The High-Performance Computing Advisory Panel
The federal government has played a prominent role in the
American supercomputing success story and S. 272 again
demonstrates this leadership. In several areas of the bill,
cooperation between government and industry is called for to review
progress made in implementing the plan and making necessary
revisions. In particular, the bill calls for the establishment of a High-
Performance Computing Advisory Panel consisting of representatives
from industry and academia to assist with these tasks. I want to
highlight this concept as being extremely important to achieving the
objectives of the bill. The results of the expenditures for equipment
and research called for by the bill must ultimately be the
development of competitively superior commercial products. The
strategic plan that is put into place by this bill should have this as a
fundamental objective. Government is better qualified for some
aspects of the task, and industry is better qualified for others.
Partnership between the two will allow the plan to utilize the best
capabilities of both. CONVEX has exposure to applications, research
and product developments occurring all over the world, and in the
broadest of scientific areas. We volunteer to help in whatever ways
we can.
The National Research and Education Network (NREN)
CONVEX fully supports the bill's provision calling for the creation of a
multi-gigabit-per-second National Research and Education Network
(NREN). It is our perspective that in the past, too much emphasis
was placed on providing limited access to too few centralized
machines. Supercomputing must be made available to, and meet the
needs of, a broad base of users through widely distributed
supercomputer systems placed closer to the ultimate user. This
would not supplant the centralized machines, but rather complement
them.
I suggest that in establishing NREN, it should not only be envisioned
as a multi-gigabit per second backbone network, connecting only a
small number of very high-speed, centralized computer systems.
Let's think of it as a distributed network of computing and
telecommunications services, serving the widest possible number of
scientists and engineers from government. industry and academia.
The National Science Foundation's national supercomputer centers
represent a case in point. The program has been a success, but we
can learn from what those users are additionally asking for:
supercomputing close to the user. Let's supplement and complement
the national supercomputer centers with affordable, open, accessible
supercomputing facilities, available in departments and dedicated to
products across the nation. Let's put a broad range of
supercomputers, distributed data bases, and other research and
production facilities, in the very laps of those who need them to help
maintain and regain America's preeminence in many disciplines.
Software
In the last ten years, only about 300 high-end supercomputers have
been sold by U.S. companies to industry and to research institutions.
From CONVEX alone, over 600 high-performance computing systems
have been shipped in only five years. American industry needs
distributed, affordable supercomputing power to remain competitive.
These companies, large and small, are voting with their checkbooks
for this means of providing supercomputing. They are using
supercomputing in production environments, not just in their
research laboratories. They need supercomputers to bring new and
improved products to market faster. Supercomputers are a valued
competitive weapon for all of these companies.
The full utility of supercomputers can only be reached through
software. The sophisticated supercomputing user community
desperately needs improved software development tools, computer-
assisted software engineering (CASE) capabilities, and better
algorithmic methods. With this improved state-of-the-art software,
we can move forward with attacks on the Grand challenges
enumerated in the bill.
CONVEX wholeheartedly supports the software tasks and goals of the
bill. Care should be taken to ensure that resources are not wasted by
reinventing what may already exist in industry or somewhere in the
world. ~t' s concentrate on improving software technology, but
adhering to industry standards wherever possible, and avoiding
proliferating proprietary solutions to software problems.
Basic Research and Education
CONVEX strongly supports the provisions of the bill in the areas of
basic research and education. Only the largest and richest
corporations can afford to have very much of their resources
dedicated to basic research. Most of the industry, and I count
CONVEX in this group, must use its limited research and development
resources in the development and production of the next generations
of our commercial products. So we need a fertile source of basic
research if the supercomputer industry and the nation are to
progress.
Again, this must be treated as a partnership. We must create
effective, efficient, fast-acting technology transfer mechanisms so
that our basic research can be fully utilized. We. therefore.
recommend that the bill specifically call for the creation of a
separate. responsible Technology Transfer Program Office to insure
that basic research is translated into products to be used to further
all of our goals.
In the area of education, the United States needs a great deal of
assistance to help us remain competitive. The bill's provisions to
educate and train additional undergraduate and graduate students in
software engineering, computer science, and computational science
and to provide researchers, educators, and students with access to
high-performance computing are extremely worthwhile. However,
the intent of the bill should be applied across the board in the
supercomputing industry and should include mechanical engineers,
packaging engineers, chemical engineers and others.
Summary
In summary, I recommend this bill to you. The amount of funding
called for by this bill is indeed small when compared to the
significant economic benefit the program will bring to U.S. industrial
competitiveness. It is essential that the United States remain
aggressive in the area of supercomputer technology. This bill will
combine the resources of U.S. industry, government, and universities
to meet the challenge of foreign competition.