In the Chips With Intel

Departing from a long history of relying exclusively on its own microprocessor technology, struggling Silicon Graphics Inc. said it plans next year to introduce a workstation that uses a chip made by Intel Corp.

The move was seen by analysts as a somewhat belated reaction to the steady creep of Intel-based machines into the lower ends of the workstation market long dominated by Silicon Graphics and other makers of high-performance computers.

“It’s something they needed to do if they’re going to stay in the workstation marketplace,” said Peter Ffoulkes, an analyst at Dataquest in San Jose.

Mountain View-based Silicon Graphics is a leader in the market for powerful computers, typically costing tens of thousands of dollars, that are used by graphic artists and engineers. The company’s workstations were used to process images from the recent Mars Pathfinder landing, for example.

Silicon Graphics has long had an almost religious commitment to building only machines that use its MIPS microprocessors and the Unix operating system. But the lower tiers of the market have been overrun in recent years by machines using Intel microprocessors and the Windows NT operating system.

Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard said it will introduce new advanced graphic workstations and servers today. a direct competitive effort against Silicon Graphics. Hewlett has lost market share to Silicon Graphics in recent years.