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Technology Stocks : Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kashish King who wrote (4726)	4/18/1998 3:18:00 AM
From: Jim Davison	Respond to of 14451

Rod, I read you post, and found my heart agreeing with you. But you have to remember that SGI didn't create the world. (Real world, not virtual) We live in a Windows world, and potential computer buyers are no longer just customers, they are now Windows customers looking for a new computer. SGI has to enter this market. They can do it with grace and power, and leave the world a better place. They are already at work modifying the underpinnings of the next generation of Microsoft's OS. I believe that in the universe of PC's there is a big market for the most powerful computers made. Don't you want to sit down in front of one yourself? All the current market players are just boxmakers. SGI can change that landscape in a flash. Whether the stock price will change in a flash is something I still miss sleep over. But I am planning to buy one of these things myself, and then I'll see. --JD

To: Kashish King who wrote (4726)	4/18/1998 2:58:00 PM
From: Kirk Vanden	Respond to of 14451

'What you'll see us doing is taking our $25,000 or $35,000 graphics and moving them down into $3,500 or $4,000 (PCs) by the end of the year,'' Robert Ewald, executive vice president of computer systems at Silicon Graphics, said. >>They're spending millions to move re-architecture highly optimized graphics software for >>PCs and losing upwards of 80% of their pricing power. Hard to see this as creating >>shareholder value but I suppose the alternative was certain extinction -- how ironic. >>Could be a run-of-the-mill billion dollar company in no time. If they drop below that the >>funds will be heading for the exists, big time. By this time in early 1999 their current 25K-35K graphics will be obsolete anyway as far as their top of the line UNIX machines. When they upgrade their very expensive Octane graphics what is wrong with shifting the older, less performance, graphics down to their 4K-5K windows Intel/NT machines. They have made a bundle shoving their obsolete MIPs processors into children's toys. I have had a SGI workstation on my desk of one type or another for 10 years. The one I have now is 3 years old and the graphics performance is much better than any current Win NT machine.( I have one of these on my desk also ). I think SGI will make some really awesome Intel/NT boxes just by feeding this product line with yesterday's Octane graphics. By the way, I personally benchmarked a 195 MHZ Octane versus our Cray YMP using only one CPU on each machine. The Octane was within 5% of the Cray YMP, which is 1990 technology of course. Now, no 200 or even 300 MHZ Intel machine will have this performance. The Octane just has an awesome crossbar architecture instead of a normal memory bus. SGI is an R&D company that is sitting on a whole lot of great technology. My mouth waters at the thought of them taking a lower performance, and cost, version of their crossbar backplane architecture and sticking it in a Intel/NT box. They could protect their high end and still use their obsolete stuff to make an awesome Intel/NT box. Will they stick their graphics into an Intel architecture machine, or an Intel CPU into their current architecture for their low end machines ? I would love to know. (Disclaimer: I own SGI stock and am a devoted user of their machines).

To: Kashish King who wrote (4726)	4/21/1998 1:01:00 PM
From: Alexis Cousein	Respond to of 14451

>They're spending millions to move re-architecture highly optimized >graphics software for PCs and losing upwards of 80% of their pricing >power. SGI has always historically migrated high-end gfx technology to the mid-end, and mid-end technology to the low end, for each generation. Doesn't mean the mid-end will wither away, just that that technology is going to evolve closer to the current high end when the lower end is eating in on it. If SGI hadn't done this continuously, SGI would even not exist anymore.