Storage-Centric Resellers Join SGI Channel Program

New Channel Partners Worldwide to Offer Leading Storage Technology for Data-Intensive Environments

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., (February 8, 2005)—Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) today announced that SGI® InfiniteStorage solutions are taking front and center stage in a newly expanded SGI Channel Program. A special emphasis has been placed on recruiting new storage-centric value-added resellers (VARs) whose primary business is the supply and integration of data storage solutions and services. Recently SGI has signed reseller agreements with twelve storage-dedicated Solution Providers that join a global community representing SGI InfiniteStorage to customers around the world.

"These specialists are delivering an expertise in architecting and implementing storage solutions as well as providing broader market reach for SGI InfiniteStorage offerings," commented Nancy Pierce, director, North America Channel Sales and Marketing, SGI.

The community of SGI InfiniteStorage resellers is offering customers the benefits of highly scalable storage systems, which solve customer problems such as:
  • Managing explosive data growth
  • Implementing storage consolidation
  • Managing the spiraling cost of storage infrastructure
  • Achieving regulatory compliance
  • Providing business continuity

"Networked storage represents the greatest area of growth for indirect channels in the storage market, and SGI InfiniteStorage solutions provide flexible, differentiated capabilities in this space," said Janet Waxman, vice president, Hardware Channels Research, IDC. "SGI's new channel initiative offers new opportunities for growth for storage-centric resellers."

SGI's most recent recruits are storage-centric solution providers. They are experts in information technology (IT) and have strong customer relationships within corporate IT departments - a targeted growth area where SGI InfiniteStorage solutions can deliver the high performance bandwidth and infallible reliability once only required by government agencies, the scientific community, and manufacturing, higher education and research customers. Each is strategic in the geographic territory they address as well as the customers they serve.

New SGI InfiniteStorage Channel Partners include:
North America:
    Houston Information Team LLC     Houston & Dallas, Texas
Placentia, California
Open Systems Solutions, Inc. (OSSI) Yardley, Pennsylvania
Reston, Virginia
NET Source Storage Littleton, Colorado
RedBridge IT San Carlos, California
Zentra Computer Technologies Vancouver, British Columbia Montreal, Quebec
Ottawa & Toronto Ontario
Asia Pac
Apara Bangalore, India
Digistore Sydney Australia
Extreme Video Beijing China
Redington Chennai India
Europe:
HOPEN Paris, France
APX Paris, France
CALISEO Lyon, France

"The potential of SGI InfiniteStorage solutions goes beyond the company's core markets so we designed a Channel program to create opportunities for resellers in a broad range of technical and enterprise markets," said Pierce. "We continue to work with resellers well established within SGI's core markets, growing the market space that we're already in and now our solution providers are opening up a whole new broad market for us in corporate IT data centers that we haven't previously addressed."

Created for the world's most data intensive environments and currently managing petabytes of data, SGI InfiniteStorage solutions are applicable to any customer facing the need for a highly scalable storage infrastructure to meet their overwhelming data growth. For example, every company faces the challenge of increasing backup and recovery efficiency and reliability. SGI holds the world record for data backup and recovery at 10TB per hour with absolute data integrity.

"To ensure that SGI is the strongest, most competitive partner to the reseller community, we will soon be announcing an enhanced program for all of our solution providers that will provide an even higher level of value and greater opportunities to sell SGI InfiniteStorage solutions," concluded Pierce.

About SGI InfiniteStorage Solutions
SGI InfiniteStorage is a complete line of scalable, high-performance storage solutions built specifically for data intensive environments. Available with 64-bit Linux® OS-based SGI® Altix® family of servers, and SGI® IRIX® OS-based SGI® Origin® servers, SGI InfiniteStorage solutions for Intelligent Consolidation, Data Lifecycle Management and Data Protection also support Solaris™, AIX®, Windows®, 64- and 32-bit Linux, and Mac OS® X systems and other UNIX® platforms. High-performance storage arrays, including the SGI® TP9000 series available with Fibre Channel drives or Serial ATA, tape libraries and network storage devices are also available from SGI. SGI InfiniteStorage Solutions are available directly from SGI or through SGI Solution Providers worldwide. For additional information, visit: www.sgi.com/products/storage.

SGI Solution Providers are authorized to resell the entire SGI® product portfolio including hardware, software, technology solutions and more. The term SGI Solution Provider is an umbrella term for Channel partner, reseller, VAR, or Master Reseller. SGI also supports Solution Providers with an attractive financing program for their customers through SGI Solutions Finance. Created to complement industry-leading SGI systems, software and services, SGI Solutions Finance is dedicated to providing creative financial solutions, exemplary service and competitive pricing to customers.

For more information about the SGI Channel program or how to become an authorized SGI Solution Provider visit the SGI Solution Provider Program Web site at www.sgi.com/partners/resellers.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery™
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: SGI), is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, IRIX, Origin, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks and The Source of Innovation and Discovery is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. Mac OS is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective.