SGI Plans

[Matthew Benjamin <MBenjamin@comshare.com>]

  People interested in this topic should obviously read the FAQ and press
  releases on http://www.sgi.com (such as
  http://www.sgi.com/Headlines/1997/December/fahrenheit_release.html).
  
  Honestly, their strategy seems much like Intergraph's in the same
  marketplace-to make high-end PCs for CAD/CAM and imaging
  applications-but unlike Intergraph, SGI states in various locations they
  continue to evolve the IRIX/MIPS product line. SGI workstations will
  remain important in those areas with truly high computing/rendering
  demands-but SGI is admitting it cannot survive on only the revenue from
  these high-end sales.  
  
  They surely aren't ready to publish their source code quite yet.
  
  The truth is that, however it has happened, Microsoft has achieved a
  consensus on the set of computing interface features which users are
  going to demand-and which no UNIX (unless it is NeXT/Rhapsody, not yet
  shipping) presently provides-IRIX certainly included.  The SGI/Microsoft
  "alliance" puts SGI interfaces and algorithms on NT-saving us all from
  the "anti-SGI" interfaces and algorithms Microsoft would otherwise have
  put there-preserving a platform-independent standard.  (One might recall
  the recent True Type font discussions.)
  
  Is UNIX dead?  Well, it must be-it's died two or three times in the last
  15 years.  People keep killing it, and it keeps on processing from the
  grave.
  
  
  Matthew Benjamin