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SGI Workstation Shakes Up Comdex
(11/20/98, 10:40 a.m. ET)
By Steven Burke, Computer Reseller News
Silicon Graphics is shaking up the workstation market with an Intel Pentium II Windows NT 3D workstation priced starting at under $4,000.
The product, which has a 17.3-inch digital flat-panel display with 1,600 x 1,024 pixel format, is slated to be announced on Jan. 7 and ship on Jan. 23.
The workstation uses an SGI chipset on an Intel motherboard, and sets a new price performance mark in the hotly competitive NT workstation market, said one source briefed by SGI.
SGI, which up until now had been battling the Intel platform with RISC workstations, demonstrated the product at Comdex last week during Bill Gates keynote. "Amazing," said Gates, after watching the product do a live, 30-frames-per-second video feed of the keynote inside a rotating 3D CAD image. The Comdex keynote crowd of several thousand people applauded wildly during the demonstration.
Tom Furlong, senior vice president at SGI, said the performance the company is delivering to the market would have cost $100,000 only a short time ago.
Furlong said the all-digital memory flat-panel display with color calibration is a breakthrough. The flat panel display, the 1600SW, won rave reviews from Comdex showgoers.
SGI is in the midst of beefing up its channel in a bid to grab a larger slice of the mainstream NT workstation market. |
