BREAKING: SGI Terminates Graphics Division (Updated)
Silicon Graphics, what a tangled web you wove.. From the old days of the Infinite Reality cards, you were the name in computer graphics. Seems that legacy has come to an end. I’m hearing from people within SGI that, as of Monday, the entire graphics division has been eliminated. That includes everyone from the Vice President of the graphics division on down to the engineers.
It’s a sad day for the people within SGI, as they scramble to find employment within their competitors like NVidia and ATI. It’s a sad day for fans of SGI, as the “G” has lost all meaning. What does this mean for the future? We don’t know yet. As we find out more, we’ll share with you.
If any of you within SGI have news or information to share, let us know via any of the means on our About page.
Update: 12:15pm I’ve just received word that PowerVUE, SGI’s hardware accelerated & distributed rendering system for OpenGL, is now dead.. RemoteVUE and SoftVUE (remote-visualization and software-emulation extensions to PowerVUE) are likely dead as well, but not confirmed. RIP PowerVUE (2008-2009). We hardly knew ye.
Update 8/19/09 : An official response from SGI..
65 Mold-Breaking 3ds Max Tutorials
VizWorld.com 
I was involvement with SGI in its early days. I am really saddened and angry to see such a great company being ripped apart and destroyed by the sheer incompetence and shortsighted-ness of its management year after year. We wouldn’t have read the story of the demise of SGI, if only her management were one tenth as good as the engineers. RIP.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
4 
0
Sad to hear. RIP ?g? … graphics division of sgi.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Rumor is that the ex-SGI graphics division may go start their own company.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
@Paul Adams
Any more detailed information you care to share ? :)
http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
The final end of an era. :(
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
BREAKING: SGI Terminates Graphics Division http://bit.ly/3yxbVk #sgi (via@Filmbot @VizWorld) So now they’re S?I..does the name work anymore?
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
looks like the “g” in “sgi” will not have any meaning http://bit.ly/RyGni
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
No more “Graphics” in SGI: http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
No more graphics in SGI. http://bit.ly/185R5i I’m going to boot my Octane and make the V12 show me a little bit of electropaint screensaver.
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
No more “G” in SGI? An era comes to an end :( SGI Terminates Graphics Division http://bit.ly/3yxbVk #sgi #cg (via @VizWorld)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
No more “g” for graphics in SGI (Sillicon Graphics Inc). Sad. http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
No more “G” for graphics in SGI, Silicon Graphics Inc. Feel sad. http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
SGI virtually becomes SI. So sad, so sad! http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
well said. Thanks for taking a hard look at this. SGI is in sad shape when it comes to rebuilding its corporate reputation – and this is exactly why.
This comment was originally posted on insideHPC
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I certainly agree with the view in this article, however, you figure that this would have just been a natural shift in the SGI strategy. If you think about it, even though SGI made its in-roads as a graphics company, they were slowly becoming irrelevant as that kind of expert as more commodity hardware began catching up. You can’t just sit on your architectures the way SGI did and hope to turn a profit because some day, someone might just buy hardware because of the SGI name. When I was doing computer graphics 5 years ago, the debate was within the community as to whether to go with an SGI or a regular PC. Almost certainly, people were just going to buy Boxx or Dell or HP simply because for the money, they can get in some cases, an order of magnitude, a better computer.
Shift does happen. It happened in such a way that SGI’s IP started becoming irrelevant and they couldn’t innovate fast enough to keep people interested. The only thing left really is the name. While its IP was worth enough for Rackable to change their name to SGI, is it really enough? I think the decision to drop the graphics division as it was came long overdue. The other graphics powerhouses in the industry that do just that as their core business now have real processing solutions. At least SGI recognizes this and is focusing now towards the utilization of COTS GPUs as part of their portfolio.
This comment was originally posted on insideHPC
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Chris – Yes, I agree this was probably well advised, as it was when they got out the first time in 2006. But to get back in in a big way, and then leave by sneaking out the back door without telling anyone is a bad way to behave. Well, says me anyway.
This comment was originally posted on insideHPC
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
無念。。。http://bit.ly/vo6Jr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Like or Dislike:
0 
0