Honeywell Set to Market Japanese Supercomputer

Honeywell Inc. plans to sell a Japanese-made supercomputer to compete with the American-made supercomputers of Cray Research and ETA Systems, Honeywell officials have announced.

Honeywell and Cray are based in Minneapolis and ETA Systems in St. Paul, Minn. All will be selling some of the world’s fastest computers, which cost from $6 million to $25 million each, according to a published report.

Cray has sold about two-thirds of the supercomputers now in use worldwide and ETA is preparing to market a new supercomputer model to compete with Cray, the report, which was published Wednesday, said.

Honeywell said it will sell the Japanese supercomputer as a result of an agreement in principle with NEC Corp. of Tokyo to set up a joint venture company. The company will market supercomputers in North America.

Honeywell will be half-owner of the joint venture company, which will act as a marketing agent for supercomputers made in Japan by NEC. The new company’s name and the site of its headquarters haven’t been chosen yet, but its operations will begin in October.

Jean-Pierre Rosso, group vice president of Honeywell’s Information Systems International, said his firm is participating in the joint venture because “studies of the growth of the supercomputer market vary from bullish to very, very bullish.”

Honeywell will sell a Japanese-made supercomputer because it has a longstanding business relationship with NEC, for which it already markets a smaller computer, and because it believes in international competition, Rosso said.

The NEC supercomputer costs from $15 million to $25 million, depending on its computing speed and number of accessories, Rosso said.