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

Terribly sad

[mccalli]

Got to say that I find this terribly sad. When I started in computing, SGI used to be some magical company that I aspired to touching the hem of - sort of how Pixar is viewed today, although obviously without the narrative bit.

I know it was inevitable. I know the economics. I know various other things but still...still...it's a sad, sad day.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Terribly sad

[WinterSolstice]

I know how you feel - it killed me when DEC was sold off. One of the best and brightest, IMHO.

Ok - time for a bit of a sad old-timer rant (feel free to skip if you think computers always came with Windows)

<rant>
I really miss the magic that was there in some of those old companies - DEC, SGI, H-P... back when IBM was the big enemy and the biggest thrill I had was reading some new press release and thinking of ways to really do something cool with it. I remember looking at the camera on the old SGI screens and wondering if Jetson style video-phones were right around the corner. I remember running a lab of Indy workstations and feeling like I had the monopoly on "cool". Back when Windows still needed Trumpet WinSock and I was playing MUDs halfway across the country on an AlphaStation.
I've never seen a documentation system as nice as "help" before or since. Compilers that took *any* major language and optimized it really well. A database (RDB) that ran so well that when we ported it to Sun it took 5 times the hardware dollars to make it work. Oracle doesn't hold a candle to it...
How about real clustering? How about a software company that makes defacto standards so effective EVERYONE uses them (like OpenGL or GLUT?)
Why is it that things like "external processors", "clustering", and "grid computing", keep getting touted as though they were new? Do any of these self-proclaimed Unix gurus even *know* why tty is called that?
For all the people who think Microsoft invented BASIC - for people who don't know that edit/tpu is the answer to the question of "vi or emacs" - and for those who have never had a RACF account; I pity you. You missed out on some of the really cool parts of the computer age. Heck, I bet a lot of the younger people on here never even coded stuff for GLIDE... and that was a *PC* level tech (and a nice one!).

I am saddened by the demise of the "science" part of computer science. In this era is there still room for wonder? As much as I delight in the cross compatibility and functionality of the new computers, I am saddened more by the lack of people who truly appreciate how we got them. It's probably the same feeling that the last steam train engineers felt as diesel engines took over - or perhaps the feeling modern diesel engineers feel at the trucks and planes that have largely replaced them.

Oh well. We've all had this discussion before, and I guess I'm just getting too old. At least one benefit of all that is having two VNC sessions open to WinXP and 5 terminals open to my Sun servers on my MBP with the full OpenGL desktop.

</rant>
-WS

Something died inside of us all...

[MindPrison]

I remember fondly my first encounter with 3D graphics, from the TRON movies, man - that was many years ago, the SGI computers was the no.1 on my wishlist as a kid - but a machine like that where WAY too expensive, and thats where the Commodore Amiga came and stole our hearts, all of a sudden - 3D became affordable, SGI did'nt belive in "3D-for-everyone" and I believe that would be the main reason for their demise.

You've got to put your belief in the little guy on the street if you want to survive, being boss - playing big, with the big - will only work until the rest of us grow up. And we did, but SGI didn't invest in our future together, if they did - we would have embraced them without as much as a seconds hesitation, but if you keep selling to the elite party (those with WAY too much money) you're out of tune with the development.


(For those too thick to read between the lines - it simply ment, they didn't follow the times)

Re:The death of SGI

[ekimminau]

SGI began its rapid decline the moment the announced the merger with Cray. As the stodgy crew of maanagers went on the land grab trying to justify their existence in their "new " company, it drove out many of the long hair, fast and loose crowd of exceptional engineers who believed SGI was a magical place.

SGI truly was a magical place to be. Not only the "Its Not just a job, Its a wardrobe" pens, frisbees, t-shirts for every new product, boxer shorts, key chains, and all the other swag SGI marketing was famous for. The "O" series of products, led by the Indigo2 Max-Impact were revolutionary products. Massively fast backplanes that still exceed the performance of all but a limite few systems, incredibly fast graphics sub systems with fill rates that still can't be achieved on lowly PC gear (they just can't push the bits fast enough).

In addition, SGI truly owned the internet space, well before Sun and then gave it away once Sun started the "dot in dot.com" marketing campaign. They had the NetScape server, free, included with the IRIX OS, on every server with a full HTML configuration interface in an age where most other companies still didn't have an officially supported HTTPD for their platform. They also included Indigo Magic, the FIRST full GUI HTML editor, again, free with the OS, as well as a full GUI VRML editor, and so on.

I truly weep for the company SGI used to be. It was the best job I ever had and the one I wish had never ended.

backplane speed?

[YesIAmAScript]

What's the backplane speed you refer to?

This say the GIO64 backplane speed in Indigo2 was 266MB/sec.

This was probably great then, given the limitations of FPM RAM (EDO wasn't even around yet!), but it is peanuts now. Intel's FSBs and AMDs HTs hover at about 30 times this speed now, and there are plenty of slots which exceed this speed too.

Am I missing something? I only looked this up because the amount of time SGI has been out of the loop pretty much means that their systems cannot be anything special compared to current hardware. That doesn't mean they weren't ahead of their time, just that a lot of time has passed and even things that were ahead of their time then are nothing special now.

I had a couple friends who work at SGI and I was heavy into the computer graphics market then. SGI were doomed before they bought Cray. They basically started by taking the work of Evans & Sutherland and bring it to a whole new marketplace. They realized the potential of computer graphics in a broader market, not just defense and similar companies. The problem was, the market was even broader than SGI expected.

Oddly, it was the horrible Matrox Mystique video card that signalled the end for SGI. It wasn't the first 3D PC card, but for many people, it was the first one they owned and used. It ran Tomb Raider with 3d acceleration. These kinds of cards created a whole new market for 3D hardware. This board marketbase pumped money into these companies (Matrox, ATI, S3, and soon after, NVidia) very quickly. And this allowed them to advance their hardware rapidly to the point where a well-equipped PC could match the 3D performance of an SGI box.

SGI was addicted to selling $80K workstations in small numbers, and PCs running 3D Studio Max that could be configured for a bit over $10K just overran them. SGI refused to adapt. Because of their overhead, perhaps it was impossible for SGI to adapt. So SGI was in a marketplace where a 3D workstation could only fetch $10K (and falling), with a business model and overhead (like owning your own CPU designer, writing your own OS) that made it impossible for them to compete.

End of SGI.

I don't understand your assertion that SGI was an internet player. The cost of their systems meant you couldn't afford to buy an SGI for anything that didn't involve heavy graphics, or else you'd be wasting your money. SUN really did rule the roost there, for a while. Until a broad switch to PCs whomped them too.