Can Linux workstations change SGI’s fortunes?

1999-11-24

Desktop Linux may not be a reality just yet, but as far as Silicon Graphics is concerned it is going to have to be as the company is staking its future on it. SGI recently admitted that it had failed to find a buyer for its Intel-based workstation business. Fresh on the heels of its announcement of an attempted sell-off of its Cray supercomputer product line, the company could really have done without more bad news like this.

Silicon Graphics lost the plot a long time ago, admit sources from inside the company. Faced with the ever-decreasing sales of its proprietary, Unix-based workstations and servers, the company launched itself into high-end NT-based workstations based around a customised hardware architecture. In doing so it fundamentally misjudged the workings of the PC market, by giving itself insufficient differentiation from other vendors to justify the price premium. It also continued to focus on its traditional markets where it should have been aiming squarely at the corporate mass market.

The newest desktop strategy from SGI is to concentrate on the provision of Linux-based PCs. The company recognises that application support is still weak, but are prepared to take the short term risk. Also SGI intends to open up parts of its OpenGL graphics code to the Linux community.

Clearly, though, Silicon Graphics are adopting Linux because they have very few other directlions in which they can go. What is interesting is that while it remains unclear whether the strategy will succeed, it is clear that it gives a general boost to the concept of desktop Linux. The company can exploit its desktop Unix heritage to ensure its Linux workstations have the usability and ease of administration required for the desktop. It is highly likely that SGI will focus on the performance of desktop Linux, again an area which will benefit the movement as a whole. The biggest unresolved issue remains application availability and it is possible that SGI will be able to leverage its relationships with application providers to help resolve this.

There will be a future for desktop Linux. It remains to be seen whether the same is true for Silicon Graphics.

(First published 24 November 1999)