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SGI CEO Belluzzo Resigns
dpreformer writes "Belluzzo has resigned and Bob Bishop is now acting head of SGI. We copuld probably all see this coming with the recent news of SGI spinning off its NT workstation and Cray divisions. Morale at SGI must be pretty low about now. 1500 layoffs, another couple of thousand working for spinoffs." A lot of good engineers over there, ya gotta hope things can be sorted out soon.
I have a default 2, so it's all my fault :-(.
SGI has a lot of problems, but I think reports of their demise are exaggerated.
The former CEO bet his chairmanship on the NT workstations. I see him leaving as a positive move - they know NT hasn't worked, and they have to pick another strategy.
D
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SGI had already decided to make partnerships with Intel and Microsoft before McCracken was ousted and replaced by Belluzzo. It was Belluzzo's job to announce the decisions to the world, and to try to work with those commitments as best he could. -- An anonymous former SGI employee
Bear in mind that the existing MIPS-based businesses were doing better than expected, and you'd probably say there are a lot of folks over there saying "I told you so".
A strategy based on Linux support for their hardware plus porting their Alias | Wavefront software to Linux strikes me as a far better bet than depending on the dubious alliance offered by Microsoft. If their advantage in workstations dries up, Alias is still a viable business, and I think there would always be a market for hardware/software bundles using a specifically optimized Alias.
I think what the world really wants from SGI are not semi-generic NT systems, but real workstations at a more reasonable price point. That's still the lifeblood of the company, as far as I can see.
D
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Did you realize that there have been more stories about SGI on Slashdot over the last few months than there have been on Sun?
For all the company has gone through, there is an incredibly loyal base of people who want to buy their Next Cool Thing (and I number myself among them).
All they need to do is product a good workstation that runs some kind of Unix (Irix or Linux, their pick [*]), sell it at a reasonable price (say about the same price point as the VWS), and the customers will come running back.
If they can just get their management problems under control, I see a bright future. It's kinda like Apple - they have too many customers who love their products for them to fail. Their mistake in embracing NT was to disappoint those customers.
D
[*] Irix might be preferable; if Linux, include ports of their Alias|Wavefront packages so we have something to run on the shiny new machine.
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Whenever I buy one, I update the FAQ. :-)
Still have the Indigo2 I bought, still happy as a clam with it.
D
[ http://www.amazing.com/internet/old-sgi-faq.html ]
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Now what do they do? They dumped their processor and now buy Intel. They dumped their OS to Linux (their best move). They dumped their graphics to Nvidia, and I guess they still have their software for an OS & processor that is gone.
So who are they now??? I see a company who assembles a computer from purchased parts and sticks a SGI logo on it. What will set them appart? They want to compete with Dell or IBM with Linux installed? Is the vision to get a NVidia board and write graphics software? That doesn't sound like any better situation then they were before. Their overhead would be lower, but the PC competition would kill them.