Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (22750)	5/16/1999 2:03:00 PM
From: Sir Francis Drake	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

That doesn't matter. This whole focus on Linux fragmenting Unix based ware misses the point. What difference does it make if NT is eaten away by one standardized Linux-like O/S, or a horde of 'em. Bottom line, every time someone plumps for ANY alternative to NT, market share suffers, sales suffer, and MSFT revenue stream suffers. Death, whether by one big blow or a thousand cuts, is still death.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (22750)	5/16/1999 10:10:00 PM
From: divvie	Respond to of 74651

I agree that SGI are between a rock and a hard place here. However, on a side note, I don't believe Irix was the reason that it was initially so successful. They have proprietary graphics hardware/architecture that is still far ahead of INTC. I don't mean in terms of 3d rasterizers, in which INTC have got a foothold with their stake in REAL 3D, and others such as NVDA and TDFX who have very good technology. What I mean is that the likes of TDFX, NVDA etc are still hampered by the speed of the bus that connects them to the CPU. AGP was INTC's answer to PCI but even AGP X 4 is nowhere near as fast as SGI's technology. By going NT on their low end workstations but retaining their graphics hardware, they have a slim chance of surviving in the workstation arena as a profitable but niche player. Edit: BTW Sony have realized the need for extemely high bandwidth required for light sourced, texture mapped, filtered, etc., 3D objects. They have built in 4MB DRAM into their graphics chip at 128 bits to give a ridiculously high (into the Gigabytes a second) bandwidth. This is something that neither AGP or SGI can compete with. If Sony can build enough of their next generation Playstation that contains this chip, for less than $300 (unlikely as they and Toshiba - the chip partners - have never done 0.18 micron before and some analysts estimate a cost of $300 for the chipset) then Sony get one huge step closer to conquering the PC as the system of choice in the world's living rooms for the internet appliance, as this will have DVD and internet access. They have sold through over 50 million Playstations in just over 4 years. Sony making great in roads into the internet appliance market is something that I have said on the DELL thread but no one seems interested even though the New York Times recently had an article about MSFT needing to watch out for Sony.