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Is the Game Finally up for SGI?
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review article looking at the bankruptcy of SGI, and whether the company is planning on a comeback. CEO Dennis McKenna is emphatic that the company isn't just looking for an exit strategy, but it's hard to see where they could go from here. From the article: "SGI has more challenges ahead, and I still find it hard to believe that after all of the chances it has had to run a profitable server and visualization business in the past it can miraculously do so now, selling lower-end boxes on even slimmer margins. But I'm hoping that the Chapter 11 has provided the necessary wake-up call for the company to get really lean really fast, because only from a more stable financial footing does it have any hope of fighting its way back onto new technology buyers' wish-lists."
When SGI started selling intel based workstations, it was pretty much over.
The expensive add on video card did little to add value compared to the hp/dells of the world.
We have some SGI (Irix) based software here we ported fairly easily to solaris.
> How much more prestiege there is to be gained, especially for nVidia who weren't picked, I don't know.
nVidia poached most of SGI's engineers when they went big, which I guess soured their previous relationship. I suspect the decision to switch to ATI was based on politics, the sort that drive SGI into the ground into the first place. Good riddance
Oh, pardon, that's sgi, not SGI. Ooh, lowercase, how trendy. That's the sort of thing they focus on over in Mountain View these days.
I'll miss SGI about as much as I'll miss HP if they ever go under. The real company died a long time ago, we just haven't whacked their shambling zombie corpse with a shovel enough times yet.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
...is that SGI's least-expesive system costs a nice $9,800. That's for one computer, running windows or linux. Basically a nice PC. Granted, it comes with 2GB ram, and some nice features. But still... ...and people thought Apple was expensive...
When SGI announced their x86 based line of servers I can remember thinking the same thing, "why would I buy this $3,500 dollar PC from SGI for $6,000?" It seemed to me as if they had the same problem that Sun currently has, not being able to decide what business they're in.
Don't you mean, "That's the way the NUMA flexes"?
The problem with SGI is that they don't really have any compelling products anymore. They have some Linux-based HPC stuff, but I think they've lost the early lead they might have had (as a result of their clustering experience for graphics stuff) in that market to IBM. Then they have some Itanium workstations, which are hideously overpriced, and aside from being Itanium seem to pretty much be a run-of-the-mill workstation in a neat case. (About the only feature they have that you can't get on something from Sun/HP/IBM is a binary compatibility layer for running IRIX applications side-by-side with Linux ones.) And then of course they have some IRIX workstations, for the few people who still have a business reason for staying with IRIX.
... meaning they're not going to be purchasing a lot of new gear.
But most of the people still running IRIX are doing so because they have legacy applications that they need to use, which assumedly already runs on their existing hardware
SGI is rapidly running of of stuff to sell. What they do make looks really neat (gotta love purple), and I'd love to have one under my desk, but it's tough to come up with a business case for the premium it seems like they have to charge in order to stay afloat.
As much as I hate to say it, being someone who's drooled over SGI gear for years, I think they need to exit the hardware business. Or perhaps license the SGI hardware brand out to someone else, to use as their high-end workstation brand. Then pare the company back and concentrate on software for the very high-end visualization markets, and perhaps offer consulting services for people converting from IRIX to Linux.
It seems like they tried to play IRIX for far too long after the writing was on the wall, and the gamble with Itanium didn't help either. Running a single-vendor OS on what's rapidly becoming a single-vendor hardware platform isn't something that many people are going to be interested in.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As far as I can tell, SGI will not have a booth at Siggraph.org. That says something.