Re: linus.linux.sgi.com

[david@carrera.columbus.sgi.com (David Watters)]

On Jan 18,  9:19pm, David S. Miller wrote:
> Subject: Re: linus.linux.sgi.com
>    Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 23:40:30 -0500
>    From: Eric Kimminau <eak@detroit.sgi.com>
>
>    As for "screwing their customers", ask Sun when they are going to
>    support NT on any of their systems.
>
> Never, whats so wrong with that?  To quote their VP of desktops "One
> more Linux user is one less NT user."  I think this makes their stance
> on NT pretty obvious.  Also look at their position in the M$ trial.
> They have things like WABI, which runs on Sparc right now, so if you
> just need the M$ applications, you can run them.
...
> I think the problem is the direction of the thinking here.  Why do we
> need to bring Unix to NT, if all users want is both environments and
> the applications, then bring NT to Unix since we know Unix is better
> (sic) and has fewer fallacies than NT does.


Everyone has to evaluate a situation from their own perspective.

Here is mine as an Engineer on the sales side of SGI:

1) SGI used to get 50%+ of its revenue from CAD/CAM.

2) All CAD/CAM apps have either gone NT as their primary platform or are
   finishing moving to NT as their primary platform.

3) I have been involved in losses that were soley because we didn't have
   an NT box, regardless of being nearly 60% faster than a 500MHz Alpha/NT
   box on a customer benchmark.

4) WABI is neat and we have a pretty good, custom tweaked version of
   SoftWindows95 but you can't run ProE, SDRC, CATIA, etc. under
   WABI.

So, for a $3-4B company to protect and win back a significant part of
its past business and to resume growth, SGI _HAD_ to build an NT box.
We all have to cope with that fact.

It sure would be nice for that _VERY SMALL_ group of users that want to
run UNIX on the 320/540 if there was a Linux port available soon.

The question I ask you is would SGI have been wiser and gained back
its share of what was once a $1B+ business in CAD/CAM if the 320/540 had
run Linux or IRIX out of the gate?

Would'n it be cool if all CAD/CAM apps went to Linux as their primary
platform and not NT?  The problem is that SGI can't spend billions of
dollars and put its market focus into a market (CAD on linux) that
doesn't exist.

Best regards,

David

(IRIX fan, MIPS fan, but above all SGI graphics fan)

-- 
David Watters         |                 Silicon*Graphics 
Systems Engineer      |                http://www.sgi.com/ 
Silicon Graphics, Inc.|    http://reality.sgi.com/davester/  (6/13/97) 
david.watters@sgi.com |  1.800.800.SGI1 (Sales) 1.800.800.4SGI (Support) 
DID 1.614.844.3820    |   http://www.nintendo.com/ (N64, the $130 SGI!)