SGI

S ilicon G raphics, I nc., 2011 North Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA, 94039-7311. This company manufactures high-end graphics work stations such as its Indy line for hypermedia, video, and 3-D graphics rendering. Some software vendors such as Information International write software for SGI workstations. These are among the best of the professional options for generating videographics and virtual realities, but they come at a high price for hardware, software, and technical help to obtain and maintain an SGI workstation. Software for SGI and other Unix-based workstations costs much more, "often 10 times the price of equivalent software for high-volume platforms like MPC---and much of it is extremely vertical in nature" says Spanbauer (1993b) , p. 42. SGI now has a low-end multimedia workstation starting at under $5,000, The Sun Microsystems SPARClassic M (under $5,000) and 10SX (over $15,000) are designed to compete with the SGI Indago line for multimedia computing. Beware that buying an SGI computer such as the Indy for less than $5,000 is analogous to buying an automobile without a transmission, wheels, and other essential components. For example, the hard drive and monitor are not included at the $5,000 price. Lindy (1994) says the price of a complete Indy system rises to $27,600. He compares features of the Quadra 840AV with the more expensive and faster SGI Indy and finds that the Quadra 840AV performs as well or better in most instances for a lot less money for hardware and software. The SGI Indy competes with NewTek's Video Toaster and Apple AV competitors, but should not be confused with the more extensive concept of network video server. (See also Video server , Amiga , Apple AV , PowerPC , SUN and Unix )