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SGI’s next stop—the SME segment
Silicon Graphics India, which hitherto targeted only large
enterprises with its Reality Centres, has now set its sights on Indian SMEs,
says Abhinav Singh
Silicon Graphics India (SGI) believes that there is a substantial opportunity
in marketing its Reality Centres (visualisation systems) to small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) in India. The company will be targeting automobile component
manufacturers, educational institutions and organisations that are conducting
research in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. SGI has redesigned
its RCs to suit the requirement of SMEs, both from the point of view of need
and budgets. The starting price of a Reality Centre aimed at SMEs would be around
$175,000 as against the enterprise package that starts at $800,000. This focus
on SMEs has already paid off and SGI has bagged two projects from IIT Kanpur
and PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore for its RCs.
Competition spurs Indian SMEs
SGI believes that global competition has compelled Indian SMEs to come up with
innovative designs and to compress their design cycle time. The SME initiative
was conceived after the company got repeated enquiries from automobile component
manufacturers, asking SGI to showcase its RCs. Avinash Fotedar, director marketing,
Silicon Graphics System (India) says, “In the present market scenario,
most automobile component manufacturers in India are exporting their components
to reputed international automobile manufacturers. To do this, they have to
adhere to global standards for which they require tools such as our RCs that
help them collaborate and share their insights and arrive at better designs
faster.”
SGI also hopes to cash in on the ever-growing design requirements of Indian
R&D organisations in the SME sector. Fotedar adds, “There are many
pharmaceutical companies in India that are into drug research and development
and have complex design requirements for drug discovery. The RCs can play a
major part in learning about the impact of a drug on human cells by running
simulations.”
Customising Reality Centres for SMEs
SGI India is offering pared down configurations of its RCs to suit the requirements
of SMEs. Fotedar says, “We have successfully configured the size of the
data sets of RCs to suit the requirement of the SME market.” For instance,
SGI has installed a four-CPU Onyx at IIT Kanpur. This machine is being used
for research in engineering design, Computer Aided Design (CAD), digital prototyping
and industrial styling. Similarly, the PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore
is using SGI’s Reality Centre solution for training its students in digital
prototyping.
On the road
SGI India is on an aggressive marketing drive to make its RC solutions popular
amongst SMEs. It has embarked upon a road show across 11 cities, including Delhi,
Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Some B&C class cities such as Pune, Coimbatore,
Nasik, Kochi and Indore will also be covered. Fotedar says, “The objective
is to dispel the myth that RCs are meant only for large enterprises and to showcase
how SMEs can benefit from RCs.” SGI is in talks with five educational
and research institutes and 15 small manufacturers. It hopes to close deals
with many of these SMEs in the coming months.
IIT Kanpur was looking for a system that would let
its students in the mechanical, aeronautical engineering and computer sciences
divisions cut their teeth on design. The institute chose to install a SGI
Reality Centre visualisation system in 2003. SGI has installed a four-CPU
Onyx RC system at IIT Kanpur—this has helped train students in the
areas of digital prototyping, design review, CAD and industrial styling.
Aeronautical engineering group students have benefited as they use the system
for computer fluid dynamics. The RC would also be used in molecular dynamics,
which involves complex data.
Professor Sanjay Mittal, professor in the Aeronautical engineering division,
IIT Kanpur explains, “We intend to use the RC for aircraft simulation.
We are already running a flight-training programme. In case we want to design
the control system of an aircraft, we need not use a lot of cables, and
there may be times when we are unable to make out if there are any twists
or turns or obstacles in cabling. In order to avoid this, a RC (virtual
environment) will allow us to view exactly how cabling is being done and
can ensure proper cabling in the control system.” |
| SGI is bullish about the chances of its ‘Reality
Centre wall displays’. These displays can be as small as a whiteboard
or as large as a multi-storey screen. Depending on a user’s requirements,
displays can be customised to fit into a small office or a conference room.
These displays usually have three projectors but can have many more. Projectors
are installed in front of the screen or behind when it is expected that
viewers will walk up to the screen and that shadowing would be undesirable.
Screens are flat, curved or cylindrical and their sizes vary greatly and
can run as large as a multi-storey screen to a planetarium dome. These are
typically used in the styling, scientific data analysis and network management
environments. They can also be used as presentation centres, for virtual
heritage and museum projects and at research facilities. |
abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com
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