The marketplace of high-performance computing

In this paper we analyze the major trends and changes in the High-Performan ce Computing (HPC) market place since the beginning of the journal 'Paralle l Computing'. The initial success of vector computers in the 1970s was driv en by raw performance. The introduction of this type of computer systems st arted the area of 'Supercomputing'. In the 1980s the availability of standa rd development environments and of application software packages became mor e important. Next to performance these factors determined the success of MP vector systems, especially at industrial customers. MPPs became successful in the early 1990s due to their better price/performance ratios, which was made possible by the attack of the 'killer-micros'. In the lower and mediu m market segments the MPPs were replaced by microprocessor based symmetrica l multiprocessor (SMP) systems in the middle of the 1990s. There success fo rmed the basis for the use of new cluster concepts for very high-end system s. In the last few years only the companies which have entered the emerging markets for massive parallel database servers and financial applications a ttract enough business volume to be able to support the hardware developmen t for the numerical high-end computing market as well. Success in the tradi tional floating point intensive engineering applications seems to be no lon ger sufficient for survival in the market. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. A ll rights reserved.