On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On June 25, Brian Chase wrote:

> > I can see SGI holding out for a while yet, with their last gasps in the
> > realm Onyx2 type systems for real-time work and then in their high-end
> > Origin systems used by the US Gov't--effectively becoming subsidized by
> > the gov't.
>
>   Last gasps?  Do you have any idea how much money they make in that
> market?  Those "last gasps" dwarf the revenue they make from the
> animation geeks in hollywood.  I don't think it's wise to write them
> off at this point.

Well, I worked for DreamWorks Animation for 2.5 years, and I've recently
interviewed with Sony Imageworks touring their facilities--reviewing the
computing plans they have over the next few months.  Everybody's jumping
on the the low-cost PC Linux bandwagon.  SGI's not going away yet, but
their place in Hollywood is being eroded very rapidly from the botton up.

At DreamWorks we got insanely excellent price breaks from SGI.
Comparitively speaking from when I previously worked at an Engineering &
Design company, the pricing that studios gets on SGI equipment is very
good.  SGI doesn't make a whole lot of money there, even on their service
contracts.  (And SGI are/were extremely good with their service, immensely
better than Sun or IBM).  I wouldn't be surprised SGI mostly ended up
taking a bath on their movie studio hardware sales for the sake of the
publicity it generates for they.

And SGI's Hollywood sales don't come anywhere close to the money Sun and
IBM rake in from general, dull, and ordinary business computing users.

>   The US Govt's money is as green as anyone else's.  And since they
> print the stuff and can reallocate it in any way they see fit, it's
> even a little bit greener.

The gov't will keep them afloat for as long as they need them.  Within the
next few years I see SGI going the way of Cray, HP Convex, and Thinking
Machines.

-brian.