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To: Tony Viola who wrote (60695)	10/28/2001 5:06:51 PM
From: dale_laroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

>I know it isn't all hardware and they have a history of great graphics, but have they lost it WRT new products development? Intel based servers from IBM, Compaq, Dell or HP are probably just as good or better nowadays, and they're very reliable.< SGI was never big in conventional servers. SGI was big in compute farms for visualization. The problem is that they tied themselves to MIPS, and when DEC, HP, and to a lesser extent Apple, targeted SGI's niche, SGI was defending themselves with switchblades against competitors wielding swords. SGI responded, not by adopting a better processor, such as the Alpha or PowerPC, but attempting to diversify into the mainstream server market. Currently, SGI is betting on Itanium leveling the playing field. Not only will Itanium boost floating point performance for traditional SGI visualization compute farms, it will provide SGI with an essentially industry standard mainstream server platform. With a level hardware platform playing field, and control over their own development/productivity environment via Irix on Itanium, SGI will be in a much better position to compete against the likes of HP and Dell. At least this is the plan. Right now it appears that Itanium will deliver with regards to providing better performance for SGI visualization compute farms, which could help SGI recapture a major portion of their visualization market. But, it appears that Itanium will not provide SGI with the level playing field in the mainstream server market, at least not for several years. The biggest problem is the hedging of bets by HP/Compaq. Where SGI needs to grow is in the consumer market sector, where the SGI, or rather the Silicon Graphics, name has potential to sell systems. The best move would be merging SGI with eMachines, with SGI utilizing the eMachines manufacturing, distribution, and support infrastructure for a rapid launch. SGI could then sell SGI branded computers into the business market, Silicon Graphics branded computers into the high end consumer market/high end gaming machine market, and eMachines branded computers into the value segment of the consumer market. Owned by AMD, SGI could establish further market segmentation by offering Hammer based Silicon Graphics branded consumer PCs with x86-64 Irix and Windows in a dual boot configuration while offering equivalently configured P4 based Silicon Graphics branded consumer PCs with Linux and Windows in a dual boot configuration. This Linux could be a 32-bit hybrid between standard Linux and Irix. In both cases, the application bundle shipped with the system would be Linux/Irix based rather than Windows based.