SGI/PSC Ultraviolet Deal Dead?

There's a rumor running around that the new SGI is breaking the old SGI's deal with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. This would kill the petaflop Ultraviolet system that PSC was buying. The new SGI doesn't have to honor the contract and apparently has other custoemrs willing to pay more for the system than PSC. With a limited manufacturing capability and a customer willing to pay more, SGI is taking the highest bidder for its equipment. This leaves the NSF and PSC in a lurch. It may buy SGI some money now, which it needs, but it could also leave the HPC division in trouble in the future: NSF being one of the biggest funders of HPC systems in this country other than DOE.

We'll see...