Bishop is directly coming to and flying back from India. He will take stock of SGI's Indian operations and address a users' conference and may announce some key decisions regarding the company's strategy in India as it has emerged as a key market for SGI in the entire Asia-Pacific. Already, SGI is considering re-starting manufacturing UNIX-based servers at its Gurgaon facility near Delhi due to a pick-up in demand, said SGI India managing director Prasad Medury on the sidelights of a press conference on Thursday.

Robert Bishop, 56, joined the company in 1986 as president of SGI's WTC and was responsible for building its international division. He joined SGI's board of directors in 1993 and continued as an active member of the company's senior management team until 1995. Prior to joining SGI, he has held senior executive positions with Apollo Computer Inc from 1982 to 1986 and Digital Equipment Corporation from 1968 to 1982. Meanwhile, SGI has announced the availability of Origin 3000 and Onyx 3000 series of servers which are among the first products to incorporate NUMAFlex, the Modular Computing technology. ``The servers are targeted at high-end, scalable computing needs for segments like medicine, entertainment, manufacturing and telecom and will redefine the users look at their computing infrastructure,'' said Medury. Unveiled in the US in July, it claims to enable users to buy computing systems while allowing them to expand and upgrade only the elements they need for their systems or add new technologies as theybecome available.