[lug] Good for Linux, sad for SGI

[D. Stimits]

Scott Herod wrote:
> 
> Another win for linux but bad for those of us holding on to SGI stock.
> 
> http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=604265
> 
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I sure hope SGI stays in business. I think they will go through tough
times, but not go under. It's interesting that ILM said they wanted
cheaper pentium machines to cluster, that SGI doesn't have them; SGI is
in the process of going x86 and dumping some of their RISC machines, and
in the process, going Linux. It sounds partly like SGI just didn't
switch fast enough, but even so, maybe the SGI hardware won't be cheap
enough. SGI does have some awesome clustering software for multimedia
that they could in theory port to standard linux clusters (and it sounds
like SGI intends to do this) and still gain a share of the software pie,
even if they don't always sell the hardware it performs on. The thing I
don't like about the article is that it said that Linux bit the hand
that fed it (meaning SGI contributes to Linux and has been stung by it);
in reality it isn't their helping linux that has resulted in ILM making
its changes, and if they were a bit faster at Linux conversion of some
of their technology, I'd think that ILM would have made the Linux switch
but still kept SGI as provider of some of its major software technology.
I would be rather depressed if SGI went bankrupt for any reason, they do
a lot of interesting and quality things in the computer industry,
especially for Linux (nope, I don't own any stock, I just like SGI's
attitude).

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com