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| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| NYSE: SGI OTC Pink: SGID.pk Nasdaq: SGIC | |
| Industry | Computer hardware and software |
| Founded | November 9, 1981 Mountain View, California, U.S.[1] |
| Defunct | May 11, 2009 |
| Fate | Chapter 11 bankruptcy; assets acquired by Rackable Systems, which renamed itself Silicon Graphics International Corp. |
| Headquarters | Sunnyvale, California, U.S. |
Key people | Jim Clark Wei Yen Kurt Akeley Ed McCracken Thomas Jermoluk Marc Hannah Rick Belluzzo |
| Products | High-performance computing, visualization and storage |
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by James Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.
Early systems were based on the Geometry Engine that Clark and Marc Hannah had developed at Stanford University, and were derived from Clark's broader background in computer graphics. The Geometry Engine was the first very-large-scale integration (VLSI) implementation of a geometry pipeline, specialized hardware that accelerated the "inner-loop" geometric computations needed to display three-dimensional images. For much of its history, the company focused on 3D imaging and was a major supplier of both hardware and software in this market.
Silicon Graphics reincorporated as a Delaware corporation in January 1990. Through the mid to late-1980s, the rapidly improving performance of commodity Amiga machines began to erode SGI's stronghold in the 3D market. The development of the Amiga Video Toaster in 1987, Video Toaster (true 48bit colours), and Flyer 4000 (a true real-time non-linear editor) in 1990 were major events in the downfall of SGI, and many other companies. SGI made several attempts to address this, including a flawless move from their existing MIPS platforms to the Intel Itanium, as well a disastrous move to their own Linux-based based workstations and servers that failed in the market. This move finally killed them off as they couldn't compete with open source Linux. In the mid-2000s the company repositioned itself as a supercomputer vendor, a move that also failed.
On April 1, 2009, SGI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that it would sell almost all of its assets to Rackable Systems, a deal finalized on May 11, 2009, with Rackable assuming the name Silicon Graphics International. The remains of Silicon Graphics, Inc. became Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.
- ^ "Business Entity Detail". Business Search database. California Secretary of State. Archived from the original on March 15, 2015. Retrieved December 30, 2013.