Posted on 11/20/2006 10:28:45 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Not really.. While its true Linux became the dominate x86 *nix platform if it were never created FreeBSD could have easily grown to fill that role. Suns stupid games on the x86 architecture (great today but its too little too late) hurt them very badly.
No, he's not.
The thing you have to remember is that Sun, SGI, and Cray all have different architectures. Not to mention that SGI and Cray lost because Intel and AMD brought reliable, state-of-the-art processors to a single architecture (x86) that became universal.
Not to mention the myriads of sellings, acquisitions, and mergers between the three companies (SGI bought most of Cray Research in 1996, only to sell it off in bits by 2001).
Cray did merge their architectures into a single one with the X1, but this didn't happen until a couple years ago, IIRC.
SGI did release a 64-bit chip in 1992 (followed by Digital's Alpha platform), but their major undoing was using MIPS when companies jumped to get employees using computers. Many of these companies' computers used an Intel or AMD chip in them--and when 3D came out for x86, there was simply no reason to use SGI products.
Low and medium-end SGI products competed with similar Intel-based solutions, and high-end systems were generally prohibitive for most corporations for a wide variety of reasons (cost being a primary factor).
Heck, this is the same reason why SGI itself abandoned MIPS (and IRIX) in favor of the Intel Itanium chip and Linux (currently uses SLES with SGI-specific mods). Interestingly enough though, this wasn't enough to keep SGI from filing for bankruptcy this past May.
forgot to ping...
Novell has sold its soul to Satan himself.
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