I am not an expert on this stuff at all.
Nonetheless I am somewhat sceptical of your characterization of the relative merits of wintel vs. SGI.
I was really impressed by Becky Warings review of the 02 in New Media magazine.
I don't know if you read it,
but she states the following,
""Every 3D workstation vendor these days compares itself to Silicon Graphics. No press release seems complete without the phrase "SGI-class performance." The claims were never quite accurate because SGI's 3D prowess goes deeper than superficial benchmarks, but they have nonetheless tarnished SGI's storied 3D reputation, especially at the lower end.
The cumulative knocks have finally wakened the sleeping giant because SGI's new O2 line swats down the competition like a bunch of gnats. O2 is the most innovative new computer I've seen in years and one of the top two or three ever."
That is a pretty impressive and unequivocal statement.
And apparently quite at odds with your opinion.
Another statement she makes at the end is,
"I've shied away from UNIX boxes for a long time, but if you're a multimedia developer working in 3D and image processing, check out the O2. If you're an SGI user, get ready for a new golden age."
I take this to mean she prefers Macs or PC's.
I also came across an extensive review by Ms. Waring comparing the various platforms performance in 6 different areas - authoring, video editing, 3d, graphics, audio, and video conferencing.
This was a very even handed review in which the strengths and weaknesses of each system were laid out.
The point here is two fold.
Ms. Waring seems to have a comprehensive understanding of the various platforms and their best uses.
And she has no bias toward SGI.
Is Ms. Waring wrong?
Or is this just a case of the 02 maintaining dominance in ever narrower niches while intel is catching up in the rest?
In the short run this seems to me a very important point re. SGI's stock price.
If in fact the 02 swats down the competition like gnats one would expect a substantial increase in sales and all the good things that go along with that.
By the way another important point that Ms. Waring makes is that the performance of the 02 has so impressed software companies that they are porting to the 02 software packages popular on other platforms. And this will allow SGI to compete in areas currently dominated by the Mac and others.
Any comments would be appreciated?
Rich Schoenstadt
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