SGI has at last managed to flog off Cray Research to rival (and rather smaller) supercomputer manufacturer Tera Computer, according to an item in today's Wall Street Journal. Tera, it seems, hasn't been doing too well of late - a bit like SGI, in fact - and is banking on the Cray acquisition, which will see it take on the supercomputer pioneer's name, will drive a turnaround. It's hoping Cray rather poor $200 million annual revenue and what it reckons is an expanding market for supercomputers will push it into profitability. During its most recently completed financial quarter, Tera lost $7.5 million (before a one-off charge of $6.4 million) on revenues of $850,000. Neither company has commented on how much Tera has paid for Cray, but Wall Street Journal deep throats claim its in the order of $100 million. That's rather less than the $740 million SGI paid for it back in 1996, but since SGI wants rid of the operation, it's really a buyer's market. And SGI should at least be pleased it has sold Cray at all. The decision to get rid of the division was announced last August alongside a similar plan to ditch the company's Windows NT workstation business. That operation had to be shut down in the end, SGI having failed to find a buyer. ®