Slashdot Mirror
SGI Announces Restructuring, Cuts 400 Jobs
kerneljacabo writes "Yikes! SGI seems to be the lastest victim of the economic downturn. Today they announced an extensive 'restructuring,' which includes releasing about 10% (400) of their employess. Seems like no one is immune." SGI claims this'll save them $40M, as well as improve their performance next fiscal year.
Caught in an economic downturn? Force to cut jobs? I am shocked.
for those that don't know, fuckedcompany is the best 'news' source for stuff like this.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
SGI did not write FSV (File System Visualizer), Daniel Richard did that and infact was inspired by FSN. FSN (Fusion) is the 3d file system navigator featured in Jurassic Park, but SGI hasn't updated it for awhile (it only works on IRIX versions 5.3 and below.
Thanks to Linux, Unix is now a commodity and corporations must find a new way to add value. You can't keep expecting people to buy the same product year in and year out. Linux is a success because like any other product, eventually it becomes a commodity like textiles and companies cannot charge a premium for commodities.
Software has the potential to be distributed almost cost free, and that demand for a commoditized Unix came in the form of Linux. Microsoft must commoditize Windows or else risk losing complete market share to Linux.
This is why SGI is in trouble. Unix can now run on commodity hardware on a free Unix clone, Linux. What SGI needs to do is invest in research for the next business cycle and NOT FIRE EMPLOYEES. Doing so will hamper its chances for survival in the future.
It seems to me that SGI's major problem is that they were always a one-trick pony -- they made the decision to stick with graphics machines at a time when that particular niche was sliding towards being a commodity, or at least commodity-doable. When Jurrasic Park came out, it was like a birth cry. When Titanic came out, it was a death toll.
They tried to branch out, but their directionless, clueless management (I'm looking at you, Chainsaw Rick Belluzo) flailed around towards one ill-concieved scheme after another, and all the while powerful PC-based workstations were dropping in price.
IMO, they should have concentrated on appliances. I remember pilot programs floating around to do things like massive network storage (a la NetApp) and other similarly promising things, but they never went anyplace.
Oh, and I had a Herman Miller Areon and an office. As an intern. Might have been a symptom of part of the problem, on reflection...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
AT&T TO CUT WORKFORCE 120 PERCENT
Funny and brutally honest. Too bad they stopped putting out new stuff.
When I worked for them in 99, they already had cash flow issues, and had had them for some time. But Wall Street has always loved them, so they always got more cash when they needed it. Many people who worked there thought this was actually a bad thing. I guess Wall Street has finally figured out that their business model is just not working.
I went from SGI to Borland, which has cash up the wazoo. They got a huge patent settlement (disguised as an investment) from Microsoft, and have mostly been in the black lately. But Wall Street doesn't trust Borland: too much weirdness. (Personal trauma prevents me from being specific.) So we were always under pressure to cut costs. I once had to go all the way to Dale Fuller for a $200 memory upgrade!
Publically held companies live and die at the sufferance of Wall Street, no matter how well, or how badly, they're doing. I imagine that's why Google is still privately held, even though an IPO would make a lot of the people there -- maybe not rich, but certainly comfortable.
Original Mac's could also update the mouse cursor during VBL. It was a complaint that some game designers had with the Apple II/II+ design, no reasonable way to sync to refresh for the smoothest animation with single-digit MHz CPU's. That's where we got some of our ideas when we were designing the Amiga architecture.
The UMA (unified memory architecture) also has a heritage from the Apple II, to the Mac, to the Amiga; and SGI used it in some of their later workstations and the N64 chipset. Of course the bandwidths needed these days requires a different solution.