"Chemnitz is a good place for us"

Jürgen Gretzschel

Megware Computer is the only German company that has made it into the top 500 fastest computers in the world with three high-performance computers. As befits the industry, the company's history began 25 years ago in a garage. Today, Megware is based in an industrial estate in Röhrsdorf and supplies its ultra-fast systems all over the world: universities in Germany, Norway and Austria rely on computers from Chemnitz. And Megware is also one of the suppliers to CERN in Geneva, where the origin of the universe is being researched in a huge particle accelerator. For us, this is a good reason to invite Jürgen Gretzschel, one of the company's founders and current Co-Managing Director, to a maker interview. Although he struggles a little with this title right at the start...

Jürgen Gretzschel: We don't have a doer. The doers are the employees who have been doing this for 25 years. And the 45 employees really do it. We founders had the idea 25 years ago, but in the end there's not much left of it because times have changed dramatically. The IT industry is changing at a rapid pace. We have had to constantly reinvent ourselves throughout our company's history - and have done so successfully.

So it's all the better when success stories start in a garage, even if they don't come from Silicon Valley.
(laughs) Ultimately, it's what happens in the garage that counts, not where it's located. We were three founders, and there are many stories that are worth telling after 25 years. For example, during the reunification period, when everyone had their own experiences. One of us was eyed suspiciously at the trade office and asked whether it wouldn't be possible to control knitting machines with computers, as Chemnitz was a knitting machine stronghold. When I applied to set up a limited company with western participation, I still had to submit it to the city council. It was finally approved and when I collected the licence, the young employee was so moved that she spontaneously hugged me. That's not necessarily common at the office, and certainly not any more...

So the company was founded in the pre-reunification period?
That was on 1 February 1990, in the middle of the reunification, not before, not after. We started in the garage with the GDR mark. Our third co-founder was still in the NVA, so of course those were very special weeks and months for him when he was called up again as a reservist. Whether there were seven or nine employees on board right from the start, we no longer know for sure. It wasn't preceded by a strategy or a business plan and market analyses, as is usual today. We just went for it.

Is it true that your first company car was a Wartburg?
That's right, it was a Wartburg. And also a Trabant. We only had GDR money, how were we supposed to get other vehicles at the beginning? So we drove to the West with the two East German cars, bought computer components, brought them to our garage in Chemnitz, assembled them and finally sold them. That's how it started. (smiles) Our business was diversified right from the start: At first, we were a system house business, then quite quickly we also had a wholesale business and very soon the branches that you may still remember in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Thuringia. By the turn of the millennium, however, the computer business had changed significantly. We had to say goodbye to the private customer business, it was no longer worthwhile.

Is that when you had the idea for mainframes?
We were lucky in our search for a new business area, but we gave it a try. We were lucky enough to be able to install and build the first high-performance computer with Chemnitz University of Technology: the "Clic" - the Chemnitz Linux Cluster. This was the start of the new business area that we have now been operating for 15 years. Today, 80 per cent of our turnover comes from the mainframe business.

Where can your computers be found?
There are around 3,000 Megware systems at CERN in Geneva. We realised the order - the largest we have ever had - in the spring. The particle accelerator there has been back in operation for a few weeks now. Our computers can also be found in Oslo, Vienna, Mainz, in fact all over Europe. Our computers can also be found at some Max Planck Institutes, university computer centres and at the Leibniz Computer Centre in Garching, one of the largest computer centres in Germany. Some of the mainframes are given a special design. Some customers attach great importance to this, because the computers themselves actually look boring.

What is so sophisticated about high-performance computers? What are the special requirements of universities?
In short: it always has to be the latest! Not just any processor generation that has been around for two years will do. It always has to be something that doesn't even exist yet. During the weeks of installation on site, it has to be the latest, most modern processor. It is also particularly important that the components - network, processors, memory, in other words everything that belongs to a computer system - are optimised for the specific application that is being calculated. There are no two high-performance computers in the world that are the same; they are all customised for the respective application.

But does the most modern mean the fastest? Or is that just one aspect?
A ranking of the fastest computers in the world is compiled twice a year. Naturally, you can quickly slip through the ranks. We currently have three systems in the top 500. Our best ranking was once 36th place with a computer in Heidelberg. In the top 10, unimaginable budgets are required, which quickly amount to tens of millions.

Performance is measured in flops. (Flops - "floating points per second". Roughly translated, this is the number of arithmetic operations that a computer performs per second. The first programmable computer, the "Zuse Z3", could perform two flops, i.e. two additions per second. The currently fastest computer from Megware calculates 285 teraflops. That is an unimaginable 285,000 billion computing steps per second).

The unit was invented in analogy to horsepower in automotive engineering in order to make computing power comparable. This is why it is usually reduced to pure speed. But ultimately it depends on the intended use as to which computing speed is required. After all, not everyone needs 250 hp under the bonnet of a car. Of course, the music is played in the USA, where computers were originally invented. Of the purely German companies, however, we are in the best position.

Do you produce the computers here in Röhrsdorf?
Our systems are produced entirely under one roof here in-house: project development, marketing and sales, project management, network technicians, service. We don't have any branch offices, but of course we work with partners all over the world. Employees regularly work on site in Asia or the USA.

Is Chemnitz a good place for a company that has had to reinvent itself several times?
Chemnitz is a very good place for our business! We find excellent skilled labour here. This is due to the universities and colleges in the region, which produce very good graduates. Perhaps it also has something to do with the mathematician Adam Ries from the Ore Mountains. Maybe it's in the genes that arithmetic has a lot of friends here. (smiles)
But the train connection is difficult for us. Without the ICE... In the early years, I was still travelling a lot myself, 70,000 kilometres in some years. I would have liked to have covered those kilometres by train. And in our industry, people travel a lot by train; our competitors' colleagues all have a Bahncard. But apart from that: The location of our city is ideal. No matter where I'm going, I travel no more than 300 or 400 kilometres. Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart - we are quite central.

Does that mean your employees mainly come from the region?
Yes, for the most part, from Gera, Mittweida, Dresden and the Ore Mountains.

As always, our final question: do you have to encourage people from Chemnitz?
I know a lot of people from Chemnitz - and I don't think it's true that they're so despondent. I think that's true everywhere. But perhaps a little pride is missing. Pride is sometimes a bad companion... But a certain basic pride would certainly not be a bad thing. Apart from that, I don't miss anything here: I have culture, theatre, opera and museums. And I would just like to say to anyone who is missing something: then go for it! I see opportunities for young people in particular. Dresden or Leipzig - everything is there, people might even be oversaturated. But there's still a lot you can do in Chemnitz. The important thing is that the people fit!