Andrew Gilmore- How IBM technology is helping companies save money

Companies such as GM, Boeing, Dreamworks, and Eli Lilly among others are utilizing IMB's high powered computers to improve products every day. GM is using these computers to simulate test car crashed, rather than build costly test cars. GM(General Motors) has to test drive every car before they can mass produce it. Each test car costs anywhere between $300,000-$600,000 to build by hand, not including the test dummy, which can cost upwards of $100,000. GM used to build as many as 600 lab crashes a year, now using IBM's technology GM has cut that number down to 300-400.
By using IBM technology, GM can create simulations of crashes, instead of utilizing GM's test track in Milford, Michigan. Ken Bonello, a GM engineering group manager stated, "It increases safety and overall vehicle performance." GM uses an IBM super computer at the cost of $500,000 that runs at 1 petaflops, or 1 quadrillion calculations per second. That is the cost of super computers, which are the highest performing computers of their kind. This technology allows for GM to produce new cars much cheaper and efficiently. This saves many resources including time, money, and motor vehicles.
As stated before, other companies are using IBM's super computers to create new and improved products. Boeing is these computers to design and test their new 787 Dreamliner. This is Boeing's new massive air plane that would be way to costly to build and test, so it had to be tested electronically before being built. Animation companies such as Dreamworks Animation use the super computers to create animations for movies such as Shrek and Kon Fu Panda. Eli Lilly uses this technology to analyze and develop new pharmaceutical companies. And Chevron uses the computers to help locate oil reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though these companies are using IBM's super computers for vastly different reasons, the result is the same. The super computers, cut costs massively in all areas of business. But the question remains, are these computers worth the cost?
IBM is only one example of a super computer producing company. IBM currently holds 29.3 percent of the global market, while HP holds 28.6 percent, Dell holds 12.7 percent and lastly Oracle owns 4 percent of the market share. While all of these companies produce super computers I wanted to look online to see the price of IBM's compared to what the article on Businessweek.com stated. In the article found at, http://www.pcworld.com/article/135334/ibm_drops_price_on_supercomputer.html, it states that IBM's new super computer cost $1.3 billion per rack, while an older version is $800,000 per rack. Although both articles don’t specify what a rack is, there seems to be some disagreement.
In my opinion, the use of super computers by GM, and other companies is a great way to save resources despite their high cost. If the super computers cost $500,000 or $800,000, and the cost of employees to maintain these computers, they will still save GM millions of dollars a year. GM will have to produce less test cars which carry a huge price tag, and the cars can be designed and tested much faster instead of producing multiple test cars for the same model like in the olden days.

article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2010/tc2010104_422293.htm