Re: Why is SUN falling so far behind IBM?

From: Michael Kraemer (m.kraemer_at_gsi.de)
Date: 08/09/04 

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:25:46 +0000 (UTC)

In article <2nmot9F2emupU2@uni-berlin.de>, "Benjamin Gawert" <bgawert@gmx.de> writes:
> "Arthur Corliss" <acorliss@bifrost.nevaeh-linux.org> wrote
>
> Yes, because SGI sold most of it's assets like Cray, Softimage, and also
> including parts of their round hq building in San Jose), and their
> increasing success with their Linux-based ALTIX systems. MIPS/IRIX is
> something that costs SGI more than what it brings as renevue. The few
> MIPS/IRIX sales are almost all just upgrade sales to the remaining existing
> MIPS/IRIX customers. During the last years SGI wasn't able to aquire new
> customers with MIPS/IRIX, instead of this they lost a big bunch of
> traditional customers to other system vendors which offered a better
> performance...
>
> MIPS/IRIX is certainly not the _reason_ they are still in business. It's
> more a fact that _despite_ MIPS/IRIX SGI is still in business...
>
(snip)
>
> > SGI hasn't abandoned MIPS yet,
>
> Internal is definite that IRIX/MIPS is going to die. And You see SGI putting
> most of their ressources in Linux/ALTIX, while the MIPS series is somewhat
> stagnating for some years now. IRIX of course gets its maintenance and
> improvements, but it's very unlikely that we'll ever see a new IRIX
> version...
>
> > though they may have to. As good as the tech
> > is, they're a lot like DEC. Bad marketing can kill the best tecnology.
>
> Well, at least DEC had technology that was performing very good. That's not
> the case for SGI MIPS...
>
> Benjamin

Reading such analyses (downfall of companies & architectures)
I always wonder if it was really inevitable, or if people just confuse
cause and effect.
Had SGI invested early enough in MIPS development they would be
in better shape today. I cant see why MIPS couldnt be made more
competitive, if the only wanted.
What nearly killed them was their detour into
windoze universe.
I guess many/big customers look closely at the
committment of vendors to their product before shelling out lots of
money. Companies playing flip-flop will loose.
A company which sends the signal (implicitly or explicitly) that they
wouldnt develop further their product will loose their customer.
In hindsight this looks as being inevitable, but I doubt that.

This has happened several times IMHO, see eg 68k vs x86, or the
crumbling of the DEC universe.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why is SUN falling so far behind IBM?
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