Top heavy SGI gets its lower end away

Silicon Graphics is shifting its focus away from its traditional high-end customer base with the release of a cut-down, u5,000 workstation that runs Windows applications.

The O2 personal workstation marks SGI's first efforts to bring its products to the attention of a broader spectrum of customers. It comes with either 64-bit Mips Risc R5000 or R10000 chip and will support Windows 3.1 and W95.

But the product has been dismissed by workstation rivals as a feeble attempt to address a failing financial position by appealing to the mass market.

Pete Deane, UK channel manager at Sun Microsystems, said the product posed little real threat to anyone else. 'SGI's current financial status shows that they're just not hitting enough sales. They're working their way down the product ladder, but maybe it's a case of too little too late.

It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that they are in disarray,' he said.

The firm issued its second profit warning of the year last month and revealed it was having to replace large amounts of its R10000 chips. SGI has stressed that the new product line will not be affected by quality control problems.

SGI owns the Mips platform and expects a boost in revenue after the worldwide launch of Nintendo's 64-bit Mips games machines.