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R.I.P. S.G.I. (Hopefully Long Live OpenGL!)

Soldato
Joined
25 Oct 2005
Posts
13,779
DailyTech said:
Analysts saw this one coming for SGI but the company hopes to be out of it within 6 months.

Long time player in the high-end server and cluster market, Silicon Graphics Inc. today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. The company had been incurring debt at an increasing rate over the last two years and had been struggling to keep up with competition in pricing as well as innovation. Per discussion with its board members as well as banks and lenders SGI decided that it would be best for the company if it filed for Chapter 11 to reduce its debt in the amount of roughly $250 million. Despite the filing, its international subsidiaries are not affected and the company says that its off-shore locations will continue to operate as usual.

As part of this agreement with many of its major stakeholders, and as the next step in its previously announced plan to reorganize its businesses, the Company and its U.S. subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. SGI's non-U.S. subsidiaries, including European, Canadian, Mexican, South American and Asia Pacific subsidiaries were not included in the filing; will continue their business operations without supervision from the U.S. courts; and will not be subject to the requirements of chapter 11.

SGI indicated that during this time, it is planning a massive company restructuring strategy to bring it back to profitable business and increase its brand reputation. The company also indicated that partners and customers will continue to see business from SGI as usual and should not expect any disturbances. SGI hopes to be get out of Chapter 11 within six months.

The Company expects to file its Plan of Reorganization reflecting the agreement shortly, and to emerge from Chapter 11 within six months.

"We want to assure our customers, our employees and our communities that SGI is operating-business as usual," Dennis P. McKenna, the recently appointed, Chairman and CEO of SGI, stated. "Our customers can continue to rely on SGI for its mission-critical products, services, and support."

SGI says that it will begin looking for a new CEO and CFO as well as other executives. Also, parts of the restructuring strategy are programs that will help reduce manufacturing and operating costs. SGI says that it is also in the middle of closing large sales deals that are indicative of its customers strong support in its products and brand.
Well, it's happened. Silicon Graphics Inc. has bitten the dust, but hopefully OpenGL will somehow live on without them. :( If OpenGL dies then DirectX will have a pure monopoly on the graphics industry, God help us. :(

*Twenty-one gun salute.*

There's a chance they might be able to turn their fortunes around, but does anyone really think it's likely?
 
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megh - i prefer DirectX. having one graphics "framework" might lead to slower development on the features front (although I still think ATI/Nvidia push new features more than MS anyways...), but it will hopefully lead to a more ridgid specification for graphics card. If they are focusing on one area (ie DX instead of DX and OGL) - it might actually speed up performance and when that becoming limited by phsyics.. then the features will really start to speed up too.
So er yeah - not all bad :}
 
locutus12 said:
im trying to get my history correct, where do S.G.I. fit in in graphical history? what did they do / make

A lot of firms, such as Brown & Root(Halliburton), used to buy SGI workstations (ran a flavour of Unix called IRIX) specially for CAD work. SGI used to be one of the world leaders, vendor wise, in highend CAD workstations.

However, with PC's becoming more and more capable for less £££s - they've been loosing out for the last few years...

Only time I ever saw an SGI box being used as server, was when it was being used to serve SGI workstations.

Shame, they had some wicked looking desktops :)
 
A sad day for the IT world.

Those of us who have been in the industry for many years well know SGI and their importance to the early development of graphics acceleration. Much of what we have today we owe to SGI and their workstations.

They will be mourned.
 
Rilot said:
A sad day for the IT world.

Those of us who have been in the industry for many years well know SGI and their importance to the early development of graphics acceleration. Much of what we have today we owe to SGI and their workstations.

They will be mourned.
Agreed. Seemed like one of the last bastions of the 'old guard'. At least they don't/didn't treat their employees badly, like some other companies.
 
GAMEfreak said:
lol you all sound like an old friend died :rolleyes:
Because one did. :( S.G.I. brought a lot of innovation to the world of PC gaming, and graphics in general. If it weren't for S.G.I. we would probably still be playing games on the level of Quake III IMO.
 
OpenGL is an open format supported by many dozens of top brass companies and is the single API used for professional use- DX is terrible at high end stuff and is horribly platform dependent. OpenGL will carry on for ever really.

DX may dispaear, indeed it has disappeared as Windows Vista doesn't have DX, it is WGF, similar, but more or less written from scratch kind of thing. OpenGL will continue to evolve slowly and be the definitive stable profesional choice.


It is very sad though to hear about the loss of SGI, they did amazing stuff for 3d gfx in their prime.
 
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