Not to start a debate, but heres another post to ponder:

http://slashdot.org/features/99/09/02/1416237.shtml

It does a fair amount of debunking of FUD and the like 
concerning SGI/Irix.

Andrew

> "Green, Andrew" wrote:
> > . . .
> > I've followed most of the SGI/Irix news I've seen, and
> > I just cannot jump to the apparent conclusion most
> > people are reaching.
> > . . .
> > > I think it is very unlikely that we will have time to do this. Given
> the
> > > dwindling support from SGI for IRIX I question the wisdom of doing
> this.
> > >
> > > - Peter Braam . . .
> 
> I have to agree with Peter's statement on this and strongly disaggree that
> SGI owns the super-computing market. SGI won't even have its Cray division
> before too long. See SGIs own news release even about there
> "...partnership
> or other transaction..." with their Cray unit at
> <http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/1999/august/cray.html>. If you
> absolutely have to keep your SGI hardware around then see if it's one of
> the
> platforms that Linux is supported on (like the Indy's) and then compile in
> Coda to your Linux kernel.