Submission + - RIP SGI
Hugh Pickens writes: "A collective shudder rippled through Silicon Valley on Wednesday morning, as Rackable Systems announced the purchase for just $25 million in cash of Silicon Graphics Inc, a company that in 1997 was pulling in close to $4 billion in revenue a year producing some of the flashiest computers on the planet for handling tough graphics jobs. SGI was forced into bankruptcy a couple of years back and has been struggling ever since but in its day it was one of the nation's fastest-growing companies, best known for building extraordinary computers that helped create special effects for the "Jurassic Park" films. SGI used to thrive by selling computers based on its own chips and operating system but its technology was undercut by cheaper graphics products from companies like Nvidia and cheaper mainstream chips from Intel. In addition, SGI made a blunder by opting to move all of its computers over to Intel's lackluster Itanium chip. By buying SGI, Rackable takes on some engineers with expertise in building large, complex systems as well as some intellectual property around graphics and server technology but regrettably for SGI, the company sold off some of its key 3-D graphics technology to Microsoft several years ago."
