[Beowulf] dollars-per-teraflop : any lists like the Top500?

[Gus Correa]

Hi Jon, Rahul, list

Jon Forrest wrote:
> Another reason why some vendors are willing to
> sell stuff at reduced prices to universities is
> for visibility. The thinking is that when grad
> students (finally) graduate and go off into
> industry, they'll want to buy the same stuff
> they used when they were students. I'm not
> sure how valid this approach is, but I don't
> argue with it.
> 

I agree this may not work with high end HPC.
However, this is to some extent what Microsoft
does very effectively with kids from pre-kindergarten
to graduate school worldwide,
including part of their charity donations to schools, etc.

It creates a culture, a habit, a dependency,
in what is a much bigger market,
but yet a market with much less choices than HPC - surprisingly or not.
(This is despite the inroads that Ubuntu and others may have created 
lately.)

Hey Rahul:

Your original question went a long way, didn't it?  :)
Somehow you always ask questions that trigger these
interesting debates.

Cheers,
Gus Correa

> As the #1 public university in many (most?)
> scientific fields, UC Berkeley gets approached
> with all kinds of deals. During the boom times
> we sometimes had to turn down such deals because
> we simply didn't have the space and/or the people
> to allow us to accept the equipment.
> 
> Things are different now, but space and people
> are still more expensive than most equipment.
> 
> Cordially,