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

To: Eli Lauris who wrote (5497)	1/8/1999 9:49:00 AM
From: Jerry Whlan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14451

I guess you call a system with graphics built-in that's on par with Integraph's Wildcat or HP fx/6 cards (which cost $8000+ each), with built-in analog and digital video and audio capability and with built-in Ethernet card -- a bare bones system. Yup, bare-bones all right. Something you could buy at Price Club for 800 bucks. Actually, that is going to be SGI's primary problem in this marketspace. Ethernet, audio and digital/analog(ntsc) video out are all extremely cheap nowadays. The only differentiation is the graphics performance. Without a monitor or more than 64mb of memory it is conceivable that a plain-old-pc with those capabilities would sell for $800 at Price Club today. The only things that will make SGI's boxes stand out are: 1) Higher performance due to a better memory subsystem 2) Higher performance due to a better graphics subsystem As far as I can tell, those are the strengths of the SGI boxes. If those strengths are large enough to keep far ahead of the ineveitable market catch-up while they design the next generation, they will find a market (niche or not, I don't know). But, if the differentiation is not enough, they will succumb to the attitude of "well this dell/compaq/acer that is less than 50% the price of the SGI but has 80% of the functionality, I think I will just save $4k and go witih 80% functionality."