But, IBM's large-scale corporate support is mucho excellent.  IBM doesn't
hold end users in that much regard, though.  Small setups are nothing to
them 8-(

Peace...  Sridhar

On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, Brian Chase wrote:

> 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.
>