Bye bye, S-G-I

Silicon Graphics finally tumbled to the bottom; it’s being acquired by Rackable Systems for a piddling $25 million. At the height of its glory SGI probably spent that much on year-end holiday celebrations.

This isn’t a huge surprise, I suppose. SGI pretty much slid through the gamut of I call the 9-step marketing plan to oblivion that seems to hit most hot high-tech companies:

1. Here’s a brand new thing. Seems pretty cool.
2. Here’s the hottest product on the planet!
3. We’re Gizmodagon. We’re hot. So are our products.
4. Breakthrough innovation from the company that brought you Gizmodagon I.
5. Gizmodagon. Products that just work better.
6. Gizmodagon. A name you can trust.
7. Gizmodagon. Our people make us great.
8. We’re not your dad’s Gizmodagon anymore.
9. Gizmodagon. Now available at Walmart.

If a high-profile tech company gets to #7 without a massively effective overhaul–and I can count on two hands those that have–I figure they’re pretty much toast.

Not that SGI wasn’t filled with great innovators, or that there wasn’t a heckuva lot of prestige in owning their products. There was–I have an SGI LCD panel that’s still a thing of beauty, even if it no longer works. But yesterday’s expensive new server is today’s flower box.

SGI just never seemed to get past waiting for data center guys to toss out those nasty-cheap Wintel boxes and crawl back home. It’s too bad, too: The earth missed out on a lot of very cool visualization stuff when SGI lost relevance. Let’s see what Rackable does with what’s left.

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