If its first billion dollar quarter is anything to go by, Silicon Graphics Inc appears to be pulling away from its recent product transition and acquisition of Cray Research Inc and is proving it can grow with the best of them. Last quarter it had only managed to do eight days of revenue on its delayed, hot new Octane workstations. SGI says its fourth quarter was driven sales of Octane and Origin 200 server lines. Backlog is now $537m. However its first full-year numbers including those from its Cray acquisition show that it’s still got work to do as the supercomputer unit is eating away at the bottom line; profit for the year was down 31.5% at $78.5m compared with the $115m it recorded 1996 before Cray was included, on revenue up 25% at $3.66bn compared with the $2.92bn it the year before. SGI reported fourth quarter net income of $102.4m compared with a loss of $48.7m last time after a $101.9m write-off for acquired in-process technology and merger-related expenses, on revenue of $1.16bn, up 28% on $977.3m last time. Earnings per share were $0.56. For the full year net income was down 31.5% at $78.5m compared with $115m in 1996 on revenue up 25% at $3.66bn compared with $2.92bn including the results from its 1996 Cray Research Inc.
