SGI "ain't going down like that": set to exit bankruptcy protection

Farid

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http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6117330.html

A judge accepted computer maker Silicon Graphics Inc.'s reorganization plan Tuesday, setting the stage for the company to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October, the company said.

"For us it feels like a new SGI. It's a relaunch of the company," McKenna said.

McKenna said the company will be smaller, too. Before the restructuring, it employed 2,200, but only 1,600 remain. The reduced payroll costs contribute to a cut of $150 million in annual expenses, McKenna said.

In addition, three-quarters of SGI's products now on the market were introduced in the last nine months, and the company is trying to tackle a larger market by expanding from high-end systems with Intel Itanium processors to lower-end models using Intel's Xeon. The latter approach links numerous systems together in a cluster.

SGI will continue selling products for engineering, scientific and research tasks. The company also is gunning for a larger market in managing corporate data, for example mining it for useful trends or selling servers with very large memory capacity.
 
Geez, change the name already. It's embarrassing that they are going to brand around "SGI" because the actual name is so ill-suited to what they are today and where they want to go as a company. What branding advantage do they get by holding on to the name at this point?
 
lol, I guess they want to hold onto it just like Cray holds onto cray, and Sun holds onto Sun, as a status symbol maybe? but SGI (at least imo) has never been that ZOMG huge, it's like Matrox, it's just there and expensive as ****
 
Eh I would say SGI's name definitely carries some clout with people yet. They were pretty darned big in the media back in the '90s. My parents don't know what ATI or NVIDIA are, but they do know what SGI is. Or, at least what it used to be.
 
I find it a bit bizarre that they've chosen to base their new range of x86 boxes on Xeon rather than Opteron. There are so many parallels between the architecture of an Opteron MP system and the large NUMA systems that have kept them alive over the years its not funny. Xeon? Hmmm. Torrenza <-> Project Ultraviolet.

Maybe Intel had a hand in this. They've certainly kept SGI afloat over the past few years with their very generous (>100%) discounts on Itanium 2s. Perhaps they're wanting pay-back.

If they want to do clusters they're going to have to prove they got some worthwhile value-add too. Cluster management software? Dunno, do they have that? If they don't have it in-house they're going to have to partner with someone who does (even Sun, for example, don't try to pretend that they "do clusters" themselves).

My experience of SGI tech support has been truly excellent, far superior to a certain other three-letter company. I dare say they have a lot of happy customers. Maybe they're hoping to live off that.
 
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Eh I would say SGI's name definitely carries some clout with people yet. They were pretty darned big in the media back in the '90s. My parents don't know what ATI or NVIDIA are, but they do know what SGI is. Or, at least what it used to be.
Agreed. When I used to go to trade shows in the late 80s, it was always the SGI boxes that were drawing attention with the real-time 3D.

I'm also sorry to say we recently got rid of the indigo that was in our office :(
 
I'm also sorry to say we recently got rid of the indigo that was in our office :(

you had an indigo there lying ready for the grabbing and you did nothing? :oops: bad Simon, bad!

..or didn't you, actually? ; )
 
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SGI built some truly beautiful and inspiring systems during its time, the O2 and Octane boxes were fantastic to look at, and even some of the the fridge-sized Onyxes were nothing short of awesome.

Too bad they let the market run away from them, but that is often the case with very specialized companies... Like in nature, they have problems competing when conditions change dramatically.

They might be out of chapter 11, but I expect them to be back in that same position again before long.
 
we've all heard of various companies that were formed by groups of engineers breaking away from SGI
(i.e. 3Dfx, ArtX) and groups of talented engineers leaving SGI for consumer oriented companies
(the InfiniteReality team left SGI for Nvidia and designed the NV10~GeForce256 GPU). as well as many other smaller defections from SGI to other startups or other established 3D graphics companies.

but I read something recently that surprised me, although I'm not sure it's true... that SGI was actually a startup itself in the early 80s, from people or a team of people leaving Evans & Sutherland, one of the original creators of 3D graphics (if not THE creator of 3D graphics). is that true ?


during the early to mid 1990s, SGI was on top of the world in terms of realtime and offline rendered graphics. the fridge-sized Onyx2's with RealityEngine graphics were a sight to behold.
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Graphics

Not if that's right.

Jim Clark left his position as an electrical engineering associate professor at Stanford University to found SGI in 1982 along with Abbey Silverstone and a cadre of Stanford graduate students including Kurt Akeley, Tom Davis, Rocky Rhodes, Marc Hannah, Herb Kuta, and Mark Grossman joined them 2 months later. The Mayfield Group supplied the initial venture funding.
 
but I read something recently that surprised me, although I'm not sure it's true... that SGI was actually a startup itself in the early 80s, from people or a team of people leaving Evans & Sutherland, one of the original creators of 3D graphics (if not THE creator of 3D graphics). is that true ?

i, too, seem to remember something along this line. can't find any links right now to back this up, though.
 
Oh, ick. That's like finding the captain of your high school cheerleading squad walking street corners in a bad part of town 20 years later. :cry:
 
I wonder how many of their staff they've lost during chapter 11. I know a few in their better guys in the HPC and technical area left a few months ago (voluntarily as far as I know). If goodly chunk of their talent has read the writing on the walls and jumped ship they could be in trouble.
 
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