Silicon Graphics Files For Chapter 11

#1

I’m not sure what to think of this, but I thought I’d share the news with the forum.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114708367971646497.html

#2

Well, for starters, there may be some impact on Autodesk. Whether short term or long term, we’ll have to see how the reorganized entity fares. But I wouldn’t hold out much hope for a resurrection.

#3

What has SGI to do with Autodesk? :shrug:

#4

for a start, try flame, inferno, smoke, fire …

#5

And everything but Fire has been ported to linux so except for support on old machines and Fire, everything else is pretty much taken care of.

Chapter 11 doesn’t mean they are going out of business, just bankrupcy protection from their creditors.

#6

well, it’s not Chapter 7 :slight_smile: If they are smart, they will focus on their stregnths now, and that is goverment heavylifting, GIS etc… and dump all the rest

all I can say is so long, and thanks for all the fish :slight_smile:

#7

They are still pulling in 400 million a year, not much compared to Apple or Intel but still.

Could also be a move to get the debt off the books before they are sold.

#8

and you wouldn’t consider support as a problem, then? :wink: it’s amazing how much older hardware running those apps is still in service and besides, it’s not like the linux offerings have completely replaced the IRIX systems, it has only started, especially on the high end.

and yeah, they are not done yet. they even announced to file this chapter whatever a few months ago. still, how many companies have dug themselves out of such a hole without some awesome market performer? seems, SGI has none, their transfer to linux is still a problematic one, not the least thanks to itanium, and their brightest talent must have left the company by now - after seven years of decline and regular layoffs.

#9

Thanks for your post . Wow . No words .

studio

#10

I remember using a $40k SGI system back in 2000 that was supposed to be cutting edge. Then I worked on a $1000 Dell, which was about 500% faster.

They had there time as leaders in the graphics world, sure they were good, but I think we’ve all benifited from the accessability into 3d graphics that cheaper modern PC’s allow.

#11

I was a HUGE fan of SGI then… I bought all that corporate crap about them being “THE BEST OF THE BEST”…

Unfortunately their arrogance was their ruin… Sad…

Martin

#12

Actually, their transition to Linux was almost complete; ALL of SGI’s new hardware ships with Linux, not IRIX – they didn’t actually port IRIX to Itanium. They’ve been trying to divest themselves entirely of MIPS-based hardware, and consolidate their product lines entirely to the Linux/Itanium gear. They’re only selling IRIX/MIPS hardware to customers who need IRIX, and have been working on getting the IRIX/MIPS binaries working in Linux/Itanium as well, via emulation (or dynamic recompiling, I’m not sure which – possibly even both).

and yeah, they are not done yet. they even announced to file this chapter whatever a few months ago. still, how many companies have dug themselves out of such a hole without some awesome market performer? seems, SGI has none, their transfer to linux is still a problematic one, not the least thanks to itanium, and their brightest talent must have left the company by now - after seven years of decline and regular layoffs.

As far as I can tell, they’ve somehow managed to hang onto quite a bit of talent, outside of graphics (most of whom they lost a long time ago). They’re still developing some impressive new technology, and they have among the best supercomputer systems on the market. They also wowed quite a few customers with the rapidity of their deployments as well as their performance, at least in the supercomputing fields.

They’ve been on the edge of bankruptcy for so long that it’s pretty impressive that they managed to avoid it thus far. Maybe they’ll make a comeback… who knows? They’re still making sales and gearing up to launch their next-generation supercomputing infrastructure in preparation for the dual-core Itanium launch, so it doesn’t sound like things have changed much over there just yet. Being in chapter 11 can’t be doing wonders for customer confidence, though.

#13

Another one bites the dust, saw that coming already 7 years ago. SGI put itself out of business right after they lost the G in their name.

#14

Apple will become the next Silicon Graphics, in regards to Digital Content Creation

Except for the whole bankruptcy part
!

;^p

#15

… but apple doesnt develop anything besides mp3 players, accessories for it, and other knick knacks. they cant be the next SGI without a systemwide approach and architecture like the octanes/etc of old.

#16

I know your making a joke but over 50% of Apple’s sales are still for macs, ipod is only 40-45%.

Only 10% of Sgi’s sales were related to the digital content creation industry even when they were huge back in the mid 90’s. Apple’s sells more DCC based computers then Sgi sold computers as a whole in mid 90’s.

#17

in my original statement you were quoting here, i was referring to discreet systems on SGI. :wink: under some conditions, these are still faster than the new linux boxes, there’s a shortage of texture RAM on the IBM’s and with high image resolutions in action, testers have reported a significant reduction of performance. probably a graphics bandwidth/texture RAM problem.
so right now, it’s not like linux solves everything if SGI was to go under completely. not even considering the plethora of installed SGI boxes that still have to pay for themselves and are under support.

and a guess: FFI is a product that has been tailored to fit to the IRIX platform for like what… 14 years? i somehow have my doubts if a port is really up on par if reliability et all is taken into consideration. that will most likely take some more releases to iron it all out.

As far as I can tell, they’ve somehow managed to hang onto quite a bit of talent, outside of graphics (most of whom they lost a long time ago). They’re still developing some impressive new technology, and they have among the best supercomputer systems on the market. They also wowed quite a few customers with the rapidity of their deployments as well as their performance, at least in the supercomputing fields.
…

so it doesn’t sound like things have changed much over there just yet. Being in chapter 11 can’t be doing wonders for customer confidence, though.

yes, impressive some of their stuff still is, however it seems they sell their prestigious systems (NASA, etc) actually at a financial loss. that worked for some time when the advertising effect from those installations helped them gain other customers but now that anyone who not totally depends on SGI-only capabilities invests elsewhere, it fires back as far as i can tell.

btw. some software engineers i know still miss IRIX features and complain about the problematic graphics solution (ATI) on linux. and as for customer confidence: the production of their prism deskside visualization system will be stopped at the end of june. that thing was introduced maybe one year or a little more ago and will have no direct successor - unless you count an altix with a possible future graphics blade as a viable replacement. compare that to the shelf life of an onyx, octane, origin, tezro, whatever…

#18

You won’t include the Onyx4 in that line I hope… it’s had a life-span of a few days, since when we bought it (1st in europe, was supposed to be the first in the world but NASA beat us to it) they already pretty much announced the switch to Prism. I can fully understand why it was replaced that quickly too. The Onyx4 is utter crap. Prism works a bit better, but still not as good as you would expect from a company with that many years of experience.

#19

yeah, i’ve heard about a customer who traded in the onyx4 “ultimate vision” graphics for an infinite reality 4 board because the former sucked so much for graphics software development. i think much like with the octane2, the graphics was the only differentiating factor - it was an onyx3 with an ATI board, if i recall right.

#20

More likely just simply bandwidth – the one thing that SGI did get right after buying up Cray Supercomputer is that they snagged some pretty amazing interconnect technology out of the deal. For quite a few years now that’s been their primary selling point; they’re about the only company out there that has a better system architecture than IBM and NEC these days. Too bad that wasn’t enough…

so right now, it’s not like linux solves everything if SGI was to go under completely. not even considering the plethora of installed SGI boxes that still have to pay for themselves and are under support.

Well, my point really was in reference to to their consolidatin; they’re trying to divest themselves of extra cost-centers and focus on supercomputing and clusters. They’re adding x86 clusters to their lineup so that they can get into more cost-sensitive markets, and getting rid of their MIPS and IRIX gear so that they don’t have to sustain two lines of system infrastructures.

and a guess: FFI is a product that has been tailored to fit to the IRIX platform for like what… 14 years? i somehow have my doubts if a port is really up on par if reliability et all is taken into consideration. that will most likely take some more releases to iron it all out.

Valid point, but AFAIK that port’s been in the works for quite a while, so that situation may have been rectified. (I don’t know.)

yes, impressive some of their stuff still is, however it seems they sell their prestigious systems (NASA, etc) actually at a financial loss. that worked for some time when the advertising effect from those installations helped them gain other customers but now that anyone who not totally depends on SGI-only capabilities invests elsewhere, it fires back as far as i can tell.

From what I’ve seen, they’re not selling Altix at a loss at all. Their revenue’s been increasing, and their costs decreasing (neither quickly enough, obviously) as they phased out their MIPS product line and scaled up their Altix product line.

btw. some software engineers i know still miss IRIX features and complain about the problematic graphics solution (ATI) on linux. and as for customer confidence: the production of their prism deskside visualization system will be stopped at the end of june.

I remember seeing that… I guess Prism either wasn’t selling well enough, or wasn’t stable enough. Then again, with nVidia and ATI mirroring the Intel/AMD war, it’s not likely that any custom graphics solution will have much relevance for much longer. Evans and Sutherland closed up shop, Real3D got absorbed by Intel, and Intense3D (formerly Intergraph) and Dynamic Pictures got absorbed by 3DLabs which later got absorbed by Creative. SGI was the only real holdout. I suppose it was just a matter of time.

that thing was introduced maybe one year or a little more ago and will have no direct successor - unless you count an altix with a possible future graphics blade as a viable replacement. compare that to the shelf life of an onyx, octane, origin, tezro, whatever…

I just hope that Altix will be around for a while. It’s a pretty amazing piece of technology. SGI’s actually been taking orders for next-generation Altixes like crazy even though the delivery’s been delayed by nearly a year, and in addition the processor it was supposed to be optimally paired with (Montecito) is now scheduled to launch in June, almost a year behind schedule. Of course, with the delays, they couldn’t realize any revenue from those orders, which is part of the problem.