That message was an attempt by SGI officials to soothe users who rely on the company's high-performance computing technology. For example, SGI systems account for nearly half of the 3,000 CPUs available for use at the University of Manchester 's research computing center in England, according to its director, Terry Hewitt.

Hewitt said he's concerned about the bankruptcy filing and wants more details from SGI about its finances and reorganization plan. But "there's nothing to panic about," he said, adding that SGI's new chairman and CEO, Dennis McKenna, "has put in changes that should make the difference, and he needs some time for those to take full effect."

McKenna took over as head of SGI in February, and Hewitt met with him soon afterward. "He has a good understanding of the product [line]," Hewitt said. "I was very impressed with his competency."

Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge purchased a 32-processor configuration of SGI's Linux-based Prism Extreme visualization system last year. "Obviously, I'm going to have concerns over future support," Brian Ropers-Huilman, the school's director of high-performance computing, said last week. The Prism system has specialized support needs that are available only through SGI itself, he said.

But, Ropers-Huilman added, "I don't feel that they are going to flat-out abandon their customers at this point. I have to believe that they are going to have a [viable] strategy."