Err, no. SGIs were first very expensive (3D) graphics workstations and later mostly also-rans in some other markets like storage and general-purpose big servers.
Servers were Sun, x86, HP-PA, IBM R6000 RISC (and probably some more UNIX / RISC systems). Workstations were PC, Sun, Apple (mostly for graphics / design), some NeXT.
Many media companies onboarded to the web in the early 90's using SGI machines.
The Indy was a very popular multi-host system for such things. It was not a graphics powerhouse and in many low-end configurations its primary function was web serving.
(Disclaimer: I helped build the early web using SGI systems, with many major media companies as clients..)
They even had the "WebFORCE" branding with the "to author and serve" tagline! I also did a lot of early web work on an Indy, and we hosted on a Challenge!
I have a Challenge S right now, and when I got it the drive had web hosting setup for a car dealer.
That was a delightful read - in those days I'd already been involved in starting a major ISP, and .. burned out from that .. dove straight into the web, founding one of SoCals' first web development agencies, in that same time period - late '94 - early '95. We had brand new Indy's delivered, a contract with Prime Time Sports network and a few other Hollywood players, and .. it rocked .. until it didn't.
So it was really interesting to read the stories from the SGI side of things, straight from the source. We pushed those machines into places they didn't really belong (US Huntington Beach Womens Volleyball tournaments .. so much sand ..) and did things we shouldn't really be doing (Hi, Aleph One!), but .. so much fun.
I'll boot up my Octane2 for the memories this weekend, maybe I can still find some of the old sites we made with that clunky WebFORCE software ..
OK, I see that an Indy went for about the same price as a SPARCstation 5 in 1993. I knew about the low-cost Indy, but not that it was that low cost (for a UNIX workstation, about $5000).
Maybe you also didn't know that it was marketed as a web server and in that capacity, was quite a bit more widely deployed than you might expect for such a machine ..
The Indy was a very popular platform for building an early web presence. I know, because I used it for multiple, major media companies who were getting onto the train.
The Indy had poor graphics capabilities, compared to the other desktop machines SGI was making at the time - I was excited to see what might have happened if SGI had kept going in this direction, and made a laptop.
Instead they did a deal with the devil and died.
I got a tiBook to use as a terminal for my SGI boxes at the time, and well now, 20 years later, a table full of Apple gear and the Octane2’s in storage, probably to be dusted off by a descendent some day .. it is sort of extraordinary that Apple ate SGI’s lunch in the Unix workstation department.
