SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - Feb 1, 2012) - Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: [ CRAY ]) today announced the Company is revitalizing its efforts to provide affordably priced, world-class Cray supercomputers to customers in the midrange supercomputing market. With prices starting at $200,000, an expanded base of researchers, scientists and engineers can now purchase a Cray system that marries the tightly integrated features of Cray's high-end supercomputers with the ease-of-use and affordability of the Company's previous line of Cray CX systems.

Available now, Cray's new entry-level midrange configuration combines the lower system cost and wide breadth of software application support previously found only in the Cray CX1 and Cray CX1000 systems with the proven petascale technologies and scalable architecture of the Cray XE6m and Cray XK6m line. Also included are all of the best features of the Company's high-end systems, such as Cray's Gemini interconnect, the latest version of the Cray Linux Environment, powerful AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors and NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPUs.

"The Cray CX line was a success for us as it allowed us to reach a new segment of users in a broader set of industries," said Peg Williams, Cray's senior vice president of high performance computing systems. "For some time, customers have been looking for us to combine the strengths of both of our product offerings into a single architecture and we've now accomplished that goal. By adding the final pieces to the puzzle -- low starting prices, broad ISV applications support, scalability and a tightly integrated architecture -- we now have an ideal supercomputing product to successfully meet the needs of the midrange market."

The new offering features enhancements to Cray's Cluster Compatibility Mode (CCM), which gives customers the ability to run applications from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) without modification. First introduced in April 2010, CCM is a fully standard x86 Linux environment that allows for simple, out-of-the box installation and running of parallel ISV applications without porting, re-linking or recompilation. This latest version of CCM, which continues support for multiple MPI libraries, also includes a number of new improvements that are designed to increase performance.

"Cray's new entry-level configurations leverage its deep HPC technology portfolio to create purpose-built systems for the departmental technical computing market segment," said Earl Joseph, IDC program vice president for HPC. "This segment was worth around $3 billion in 2011 and IDC projects that it will grow at a healthy 7 percent to 8 percent CAGR through 2015."

With this expansion of midrange products, the Company has now addressed the price-sensitive product application space with the Cray XE and Cray XK architectures, which scale up, or configure down, across the performance spectrum. This delivers an improved and contiguous compatibility over the Cray product lines, supporting migration of applications while delivering an impressive price/performance package ramping up from 6.5 teraflops. These lower-cost Cray XE6m and Cray XK6m systems will now also target the market segments and customers that were previously served by the Cray CX line.

About Cray Inc.
As a global leader in supercomputing, Cray provides highly advanced supercomputers and world-class services and support to government, industry and academia. Cray technology is designed to enable scientists and engineers to achieve remarkable breakthroughs by accelerating performance, improving efficiency and extending the capabilities of their most demanding applications. Cray's Adaptive Supercomputing vision is focused on delivering innovative next-generation products that integrate diverse processing technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to surpass today's limitations and meeting the market's continued demand for realized performance. Go to [ www.cray.com ] for more information.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, including, but not limited to, statements related to Cray's ability to meet the needs of the midrange market and expand and penetrate its addressable market. These statements involve current expectations, forecasts of future events and other statements that are not historical facts. Inaccurate assumptions and known and unknown risks and uncertainties can affect the accuracy of forward-looking statements and cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could affect actual future events or results include, but are not limited to, the risk that Cray's midrange product offerings are not successful, the risk that Cray will not be able to expand and penetrate its addressable market as expected or at all and such other risks as identified in the Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2011, and from time to time in other reports filed by Cray with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not rely unduly on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this release. Cray undertakes no duty to publicly announce or report revisions to these statements as new information becomes available that may change the Company's expectations.

Cray is a registered trademark of Cray Inc. in the United States and other countries, and Cray CX, Cray CX1, Cray CX1000, Cray XE6m, Cray XK6m, Gemini, Cray Linux Environment, Cray XE and Cray XK are trademarks of Cray Inc. Other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.