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."

Comments

SGI Video cards

[amightywind]

You would think that the SGI name has enough high end appeal that nVidia or ATI would want to market SGI branded video cards. SGI could certainly be had cheap.

Zombies

[Tx]

You know, when you bring something back from the dead, it's never quite the same again, and you usually wish you hadn't. Let the company die while people still have fond memories of the brand, I say.

Altrix / SGI

[SirStanley]

They did just break a memory bandwidth record yesterday.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060717/sfm024.html?.v= 55

Apple

[forgoil]

Apple should buy SGI (patents, know-how, take whatever they can from IRIX, OpenGL, etc) and kill off the rest of the stuff they dont need or cant sell.

Ahhh ... but their stuff Just Works

[Toon Moene]

We (The Dutch Weather Service) bought an Altix in April.

Their hardware rocks. The software - though complex, on three racks using a common file system - works.

I never believed in Itaniums, but for our code (heavy vectorizable, large memory models) they fly.

In short, if SGI collapses, in our market the loss will be quite noticeable.

Doing something Different...

[starseeker]

The real problem here is how to do something that is different enough and desirable enough that people will pay more to buy it than the cost of making a mainstream box do it. Apple does this with an extremely well polished, well mannered software environment where everything "just works." There is a niche for that product class that won't be overtaken by Windows PCs anytime soon (or Linux PCs, for that matter.)

SGI's systems were well designed, but the problem was computing power increased to the point where the price/performance benefit of their boxes got too small to warrant serious consideration. Power became plentiful and cheap, and SGI's clients were Unix nerds so they could make other solutions work if they presented more cost effective alternatives. Even if those solutions were less elegant, they resulted in a better profit yield. In a free market that's enough to make the decision.

It's like that Dilbert cartoon segmenting customers - Smart customers are never a good bet. Of course that's exaggeration, but Apple appeals to those who want their computer to Stay Out Of The Way. That market segment is much less sensitive to hardware technology change, which is why Apple has lasted so long. Apple's customers don't WANT to be "smart" about computers, so they select a system that doesn't demand that. SGI's customers were high end power users - they were and are smart about computers. So when the technology changed, their users followed the changes.

I would like to see some smaller companies again push the limites of what we think of as "standard" computer designs, but as SGI has learned there is no money in such work and fabrication costs are prohibitive. The Lisp machines died out years ago, even more thoroughly. Maybe MOSIS and co will let someone get creative again, but for now the market seems to have decided, and the decision is for cheap and disposable.

Re:SGI employees went to NetApp

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to laugh at comments like these as they can only be made by people who either have never used Sun hardware or software, or no longer keep up with the marketplace. Innovations that Sun continues to pump out (i.e. Sun x4600, x4500, Sol10, ZFS, DTrace, etc.) certainly deserve recognition and are highly useful. I use and admin all types of machines and OS's (mostly UNIX variants), and Sun certainly continues to be useful and relevant. In fact, they're better than most vendors in most areas.

Re:No compelling products anymore.

[mrchaotica]

and the current video card market with it's six-month product cycle soon eclipsed the FGL card (to certify a card to work with an enterprise platform takes time that a consumer-level card doesn't require).

You know, I still don't get it: what is the point of "enterprise" graphics cards (i.e. FireGL and QuadroFX), aside from decent Linux OpenGL drivers? Is there some reason you can't use a normal gaming card for stuff like Maya, etc.?