X

Is SGI just one of many dominoes to fall?

Mike Yamamoto Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Mike Yamamoto is an executive editor for CNET News.com.
Mike Yamamoto
2 min read

Linux may be increasingly popular throughout the corporate computing industry, but the fate of once-mighty Silicon Graphics Inc. proves that the open-source operating system is not a guaranteed panacea for companies that are struggling in their core franchises. SGI's bankruptcy filing could be particularly ominous for another former high flyer in the market, Sun Microsystems.

Both companies have seen sales decline in their proprietary computer systems, and both turned to Linux in hopes of resuscitating their flagging businesses with the trend toward open-source software. As SGI's downfall shows, however, many companies still face an inherent dilemma in embracing Linux or any other open-source products: How do they help their businesses by supporting a technology that directly competes with their own proprietary products?

As SGI and others may find out, the answer could be a lot more complicated than they had originally thought.

Blog community response:

"They were the epitome of Silicon Valley cool in a time when Apple was floundering. But along came Linux, and suddenly it was possible to put together the same high-end computing power for much cheaper than buying big SGI boxes."
--Densaer

"Rather than looking a gift horse in the mouth by questioning the motives of the giver, let's just thank Sun for helping advance the cause of Linux one more time and hope the market trend lines associated with Linux get yet another boost from Sun's actions. Perhaps the questions regarding motivation and business models that perplex all of us that watch Sun from a distance are more clear to those inside the Sun organization."
--Billy on Open Source

"There is no clear market leader. UNIX was the server leader for more than a decade, and it is slowly slipping out of site (the sad news about SGI this week was one more indicator). Windows has taken the lion's share of the UNIX slice of the pie, but Linux is growing very quickly (and will continue to grow)."
--Dan Ceruli's West Coast Grid