Unless you were doing 3D graphics, SGI computers of the 1990s were overpriced.  At my first startup in 1997 we benchmarked SGI and Suns against PCs of the time, and found white-box PCs offered a clear 3 x price&#x2F;performance advantage.  So we kitted out our test network and datacenter with racks of white-box PCs (literally desktop PCs, not even server hardware).<p>I still have no idea what the advantage of Sun hardware was supposed to be, except some people were locked in, either by software or some kind of Stockholm syndrome.<p>Edit: Photo of our test network: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;oirase.annexia.org&#x2F;tmp&#x2F;testbed.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;oirase.annexia.org&#x2F;tmp&#x2F;testbed.jpg</a>