US Report: SGI deals with Intel; outlines strategy

At a press conference in New York, Silicon Graphics' CEO, Rick Belluzzo, outlined the company's "strategic business plan", which focuses on visual computing and high-bandwidth systems. The company will concentrate on six industries: communications, energy, entertainment, government, manufacturing and science, he said.

The Intel deal calls for Silicon Graphics to use Intel's IA32 technology in its workstations. Silicon Graphics will also port its 64-bit IRIX operating system to Intel's IA64 platform, code-named Merced.

The two companies have also agreed to a joint marketing pact to push the Silicon Graphics workstations featuring Intel processors and Windows NT.

Silicon Graphics also announced that its MIPS Technologies subsidiary will be spun off as a public company. MIPS designs and licenses microprocessors for the consumer and embedded markets, including game machines, set-top boxes and handheld devices