SGI Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

audi100quattro writes "The WSJ has a story about SGI filing for bankruptcy, but the SGI Investor's Relation page doesn't say anything." Nothing else really known at this point, but this is not unexpected.

Comments

Sad

[syylk]

I worked with IRIX at some point of my career. Nothing impressive, mind you. But the machine was stylish and the aura of "eliteness" leaked from every vent grill. Onyxes, Octanes, Origins... They could be beat by a low-level GPU these days, but back then, they were wet dreams coming true.

I'm sad to see them go. Not surprised, but still a bit sad.

Erwin will need a new home...

To be perfectly honest...

[furry_marmot]

...I'm surprised it took this long. After throwing over their own OS for NT workstations and losing the high-end specialty graphics market, they veered into supercomputers and bought Cray, which didn't help either company, and they haven't done anything interesting in years. RIP SGI

Unexpected

[wombatmobile]

Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky

Re:Does this suprise anyone?

[FuzzyDaddy]

I used to work in the military simulation business about six years ago. SGI used to be the dominant player for real time graphics for the visuals for things like flight simulators. Even then, their fortunes were declining. The fundemental problem was that the problem in military simulation was not getting harder, and the commodity hardware was getting to the level of being able to handle it. People now longer had to pay the premium for the SGI equipment.

I don't think they stopped doing what they were doing - they just never came up with a strategy to handle the new reality.

Re:Does this suprise anyone?

[datafr0g]

The money's not in hardware anymore - hasn't been for a long time unless you can supply a massive like and do it well. Professional Services is where it's at now - IBM learned this in the early 90's.

Big hardware companies need to seriously change their outlook - if it can be done with a PC, it will eventually be done with a PC cheaply, the question is not what the "box" does, it's who's the best at providing the service.

SGI is now a good bargain

[csoto]

With a Chapter 11 reorg, a potential buyer would get access to a lot of very interesting HPC technology, without a lot of liability. This is what the current bondholders are counting on - buy it while it's cheap and sell it for more to some other company.

What do you get (of any value) when you snap up SGI?

-XFS/XVM/CXFS - one of the best storage environments out there in production
-OpenGL/VAN
-DMF/TMF
-GRIO
-Numerous other subsystems to IRIX/Linux

Their hardware hasn't kept pace as well. However, there's still a lot to like about the architecture (HyperTransport looks so much like SGI-Craylink). They're about the only ones who managed to make something useful of Itanium (another straw on the camel's back). Perhaps someone could do something with it, provided they supply the needed R&D money.