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SGI Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon May 08, 2006 07:53 AM
from the yet-again dept.
from the yet-again dept.
audi100quattro writes "The WSJ has a story about SGI filing for bankruptcy, but the SGI Investor's Relation page doesn't say anything." Nothing else really known at this point, but this is not unexpected.
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SGI Arises From the Ashes 195 comments
eldavojohn writes "Six months ago, Slashdot reported on SGI's filing of Chapter Eleven Bankruptcy. I wondered why Slashdot kept the Silicon Graphics category with them now defunct. But Chapter Eleven means a reorganization — not liquidation. And, surprisingly, SGI has dusted itself off and stood back up. What did they dust off? About $150 million worth of spending a year. Will this reorganization put them back as a player in the graphics game? Maybe but as the article notes, they have some stiff competition that offer comparable services for less money. Is this a phoenix story or the final death throes of the company?" To be honest, no one here suspected a thing. We just keep the old topics around so it's still possible to find old stories related to them. Sometimes (like now!) they even still come in handy.
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Story (Score:5, Informative)
For Chapter 11 Protection
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
May 8, 2006 6:56 a.m.
Silicon Graphics Inc., a long-struggling maker of high-performance computers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
A group of bondholders agreed to trade their debt for a stake in the company, which filed for Chapter 11 protection Monday morning in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
SGI is known for desktop workstations and larger server systems that are favored by engineers and others who demand sophisticated graphics, including Hollywood studios. But the company has suffered a long slide, partly due to competition from machines based on standard components used in personal computers.
The company's stock was recently delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for trading below a minimum threshold of $1 a share, and now trades on the small-cap OTC Bulletin Board.
Earlier this year, SGI replaced its top executive amid widening losses and lower revenue. Last month, the company said it expected revenue of about $108 million for the third fiscal quarter, well below guidance of $140 million to $160 million.
Press Release (Score:5, Informative)
(http://datafrog.org/)
Re:The death of SGI (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://beamsport.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 15, @06:03PM)
SGI truly was a magical place to be. Not only the "Its Not just a job, Its a wardrobe" pens, frisbees, t-shirts for every new product, boxer shorts, key chains, and all the other swag SGI marketing was famous for. The "O" series of products, led by the Indigo2 Max-Impact were revolutionary products. Massively fast backplanes that still exceed the performance of all but a limite few systems, incredibly fast graphics sub systems with fill rates that still can't be achieved on lowly PC gear (they just can't push the bits fast enough).
In addition, SGI truly owned the internet space, well before Sun and then gave it away once Sun started the "dot in dot.com" marketing campaign. They had the NetScape server, free, included with the IRIX OS, on every server with a full HTML configuration interface in an age where most other companies still didn't have an officially supported HTTPD for their platform. They also included Indigo Magic, the FIRST full GUI HTML editor, again, free with the OS, as well as a full GUI VRML editor, and so on.
I truly weep for the company SGI used to be. It was the best job I ever had and the one I wish had never ended.
backplane speed? (Score:4, Interesting)
This say the GIO64 backplane speed in Indigo2 was 266MB/sec.
This was probably great then, given the limitations of FPM RAM (EDO wasn't even around yet!), but it is peanuts now. Intel's FSBs and AMDs HTs hover at about 30 times this speed now, and there are plenty of slots which exceed this speed too.
Am I missing something? I only looked this up because the amount of time SGI has been out of the loop pretty much means that their systems cannot be anything special compared to current hardware. That doesn't mean they weren't ahead of their time, just that a lot of time has passed and even things that were ahead of their time then are nothing special now.
I had a couple friends who work at SGI and I was heavy into the computer graphics market then. SGI were doomed before they bought Cray. They basically started by taking the work of Evans & Sutherland and bring it to a whole new marketplace. They realized the potential of computer graphics in a broader market, not just defense and similar companies. The problem was, the market was even broader than SGI expected.
Oddly, it was the horrible Matrox Mystique video card that signalled the end for SGI. It wasn't the first 3D PC card, but for many people, it was the first one they owned and used. It ran Tomb Raider with 3d acceleration. These kinds of cards created a whole new market for 3D hardware. This board marketbase pumped money into these companies (Matrox, ATI, S3, and soon after, NVidia) very quickly. And this allowed them to advance their hardware rapidly to the point where a well-equipped PC could match the 3D performance of an SGI box.
SGI was addicted to selling $80K workstations in small numbers, and PCs running 3D Studio Max that could be configured for a bit over $10K just overran them. SGI refused to adapt. Because of their overhead, perhaps it was impossible for SGI to adapt. So SGI was in a marketplace where a 3D workstation could only fetch $10K (and falling), with a business model and overhead (like owning your own CPU designer, writing your own OS) that made it impossible for them to compete.
End of SGI.
I don't understand your assertion that SGI was an internet player. The cost of their systems meant you couldn't afford to buy an SGI for anything that didn't involve heavy graphics, or else you'd be wasting your money. SUN really did rule the roost there, for a while. Until a broad switch to PCs whomped them too.
Does this suprise anyone? (Score:1, Troll)
Standard Template Library (Score:5, Informative)
My question is; where they contributing anything new to the maket recently
It may not be all that "recent", but if you're a C++ programmer, you might want to download a copy of this documentation before the bankruptcy trustees pull the plug on the server:
Re:Does this suprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday October 23, @09:24AM)
I don't think they stopped doing what they were doing - they just never came up with a strategy to handle the new reality.
Re:Does this suprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://datafrog.org/)
Big hardware companies need to seriously change their outlook - if it can be done with a PC, it will eventually be done with a PC cheaply, the question is not what the "box" does, it's who's the best at providing the service.
Does anyone still use the SGI workstations anymore (Score:2, Informative)
So the question is are the SGI workstations worth the cost? Is SGI going to survive.
And for karma whoring here is the wikipedia index on SGI's history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Graphics [wikipedia.org]
Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.mekwars.org/)
I'm sad to see them go. Not surprised, but still a bit sad.
Erwin will need a new home...
Nothing there yet.. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://robvincent.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 09, @01:55PM)
They'll add it in with green-screen later.
To be perfectly honest... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Terribly sad (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.eruvia.org/)
I know it was inevitable. I know the economics. I know various other things but still...still...it's a sad, sad day.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Terribly sad (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok - time for a bit of a sad old-timer rant (feel free to skip if you think computers always came with Windows)
<rant>
I really miss the magic that was there in some of those old companies - DEC, SGI, H-P... back when IBM was the big enemy and the biggest thrill I had was reading some new press release and thinking of ways to really do something cool with it. I remember looking at the camera on the old SGI screens and wondering if Jetson style video-phones were right around the corner. I remember running a lab of Indy workstations and feeling like I had the monopoly on "cool". Back when Windows still needed Trumpet WinSock and I was playing MUDs halfway across the country on an AlphaStation.
I've never seen a documentation system as nice as "help" before or since. Compilers that took *any* major language and optimized it really well. A database (RDB) that ran so well that when we ported it to Sun it took 5 times the hardware dollars to make it work. Oracle doesn't hold a candle to it...
How about real clustering? How about a software company that makes defacto standards so effective EVERYONE uses them (like OpenGL or GLUT?)
Why is it that things like "external processors", "clustering", and "grid computing", keep getting touted as though they were new? Do any of these self-proclaimed Unix gurus even *know* why tty is called that?
For all the people who think Microsoft invented BASIC - for people who don't know that edit/tpu is the answer to the question of "vi or emacs" - and for those who have never had a RACF account; I pity you. You missed out on some of the really cool parts of the computer age. Heck, I bet a lot of the younger people on here never even coded stuff for GLIDE... and that was a *PC* level tech (and a nice one!).
I am saddened by the demise of the "science" part of computer science. In this era is there still room for wonder? As much as I delight in the cross compatibility and functionality of the new computers, I am saddened more by the lack of people who truly appreciate how we got them. It's probably the same feeling that the last steam train engineers felt as diesel engines took over - or perhaps the feeling modern diesel engineers feel at the trucks and planes that have largely replaced them.
Oh well. We've all had this discussion before, and I guess I'm just getting too old. At least one benefit of all that is having two VNC sessions open to WinXP and 5 terminals open to my Sun servers on my MBP with the full OpenGL desktop.
</rant>
-WS
Unexpected (Score:5, Insightful)
Old age is the most unexpected [accelerating.org] of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky
Misunderstanding (Score:1)
(http://businessential.co.uk/)
I guess Autodesk cares (Score:2)
Something died inside of us all... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday July 18 2005, @05:56PM)
You've got to put your belief in the little guy on the street if you want to survive, being boss - playing big, with the big - will only work until the rest of us grow up. And we did, but SGI didn't invest in our future together, if they did - we would have embraced them without as much as a seconds hesitation, but if you keep selling to the elite party (those with WAY too much money) you're out of tune with the development.
(For those too thick to read between the lines - it simply ment, they didn't follow the times)
Investor Relations Info (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.slashdot.org/~spacemky/journal/ | Last Journal: Monday January 15 2007, @07:43PM)
http://www.sgi.com/company_info/newsroom/press_re
From the release:
"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. The Company expects to file its Plan of Reorganization reflecting the agreement shortly, and to emerge from Chapter 11 within six months."
One less icon for Slashdot to manage (Score:2, Informative)
SGI collectors items (Score:3, Funny)
Woooot!
Chip H.
Sad. I loved using their Reality Engines (Score:2)
(http://www.markwatson.com/)
I am not a computer graphics specialist, but it was great to work with full screen graphics at a high frame rate. The artistic types at Angel Studios where I worked created amazing 3d models, textures, and environments - really, some of the most fun I ever had working.
Sorry to see them go... (Score:5, Informative)
Heck, I use a Powerbook G4 for most of my tasks these days and my SGI O2 and SGI 320 NT box in my office are used little these days, but the Macs do lack some advanced hardware features that are only available on Infinite Reality gfx boards and Tezro v12. See Discreet's website and you'll notice that Flame, Inferno and Fire still run on ONLY SGI hardware. SGI InfiniteReality boards are used as image generators for flight military flight simulators and also to drive the Inferno compositing and film mastering, using up to 32 film resolution layers and 10-bit anti-aliased graphics
Sure, Nvidia and ATI cards go have an polygon count advantage and they do have features like pixel and vertex shaders, but overall for high fidelity graphics one still goes back to SGIs. If one looks at what is capable in Final Cut Pro HD, it still falls in terms of output quality compared to what an SGI can handle. For video DMediaPro options with support for two streams of high-definition 10-bit 4:4:4:4 RGBA video. Or if one needed to generate your own video signal. Programmable FPGA video card or drive a C.A.V.E. or Powerwall SGI Mutichannel Option cards are capable of doing this. I have yet to see PC based Image Generator be as successful at doing this without a lot of hacking, blood, sweat and tears. SGI's handle the tough visualization tasks do out of the box. SGI's gfx API are second to none
OpenGL Inventor
OpenGL Multipipe (+ SDK)
OpenGL Optimizer
OpenGL Performer
OpenGL Shader
OpenGL Vizserver
OpenGL Volumizer
ImageVision and Image Format Library (IFL)
SGI was a great company, although it was badly mismanaged. I'd love to see it merged with Apple and all the SGI gfx API's integrated into OS X. Plus other tecnologies like ccNUMA, XFS, CXFS, NUMAlink4 (6.4GBs), NUMAflex combined with Hypertransport and Infiniband (when customers need cheaper solution than NUMAlink)
SGI Workstations (Score:3, Interesting)
How about.... HyperTransport-links between CPU's, integrated mem-controllers, on-die L2-caches, HTX-expansion, multicore, multi-CPU-setups. All this, and running Linux. Hell, those changes alone would give us a nice boost, even if the CPU-core (R16000A IIRC) itself stayed relatively same.
doesn't say anything? (Score:1)
(http://www.geoff.dj/)
SGI (Score:1)
(http://www.chasepaymentech.com/)
They needed to repeat the success of the Indy. (Score:1, Insightful)
For many, the Indy proved to be a gateway system. Developers or graphics artists would purchase an Indy, become quite happy with it, and then go on to purchase higher-end SGI hardware when the need arose.
The Opteron provided an opportunity for them to repeat that feat. They could have released a low-cost, high-quality workstation based around that CPU. Had they beaten Sun, HP, and others, they could have had a large chunk of the market. They could have even used the distinctive blue/teal case of the Indy to appeal to former users.
In addition to that, they could have tweaked a system such as FreeBSD to run very well on their new Opteron-based system. Unfortuantely, IRIX development has lagged recently, and is just not up to par with other UNIX systems of today. FreeBSD, however, with SGI-specific modifications could have proved to be a real winner.
We use Origin 3800's... (Score:1)
SGI is now a good bargain (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you get (of any value) when you snap up SGI?
-XFS/XVM/CXFS - one of the best storage environments out there in production
-OpenGL/VAN
-DMF/TMF
-GRIO
-Numerous other subsystems to IRIX/Linux
Their hardware hasn't kept pace as well. However, there's still a lot to like about the architecture (HyperTransport looks so much like SGI-Craylink). They're about the only ones who managed to make something useful of Itanium (another straw on the camel's back). Perhaps someone could do something with it, provided they supply the needed R&D money.
Now is the time... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.simra.net/)
It's sad to see them go, and not just for their cool h/w. This is the company that brought us OpenGL and, for a long time, the only useful STL documentation on the web (not to mention Irix had a working c++ compiler). I can almost forgive them for IRIX 6.5.
To the memory of SGI (Score:2, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday April 19 2007, @06:53PM)
I am sorry for SGI breaking down. But I hope that Apple can learn from their mistakes. It's too late for Sun I guess.
I shall remember you, SGI, and I will think of you every time I play with my future girlfriend.
It's Too Early (Score:1)
CH 11 (Score:1)
(http://marwag.webpal.info/)
Nice systems, but the company was a pain to deal/w (Score:2, Interesting)
A $3000 Indy might have seemed like a good deal, but when you need a thousand dollars a year worth of hardware and software contracts to support basic administration of the box, it didn't compare too well with its competition.
Of course, my POV is probably severly tainted by the fact that I just did NOT like the sales rep. Half of what came out of his mouth was BS.
On the other hand, this had to have been 10 years ago, and I should probably just get over it.
Oh No! (Score:2, Insightful)
Chapter 11 announced (Score:1)
(http://grimstveit.no/jakob)
SGI Takes Action to Reduce Debt
SGI Announces Pre-Negotiated Reorganization
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., (May 8, 2006)--Silicon Graphics (OTC: SGID) today announced that it has reached an agreement with all of its Senior Secured bank lenders and with holders of a significant amount of its Senior Secured debt on the terms of a reorganization plan that will reduce its debt by approximately $250 million, greatly simplifying its capital structure.
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. The Company expects to file its Plan of Reorganization reflecting the agreement shortly, and to emerge from Chapter 11 within six months.
Read more at http://www.sgi.com/company_info/newsroom/press_rel eases/2006/may/sgi_reorg.html [sgi.com]
I thank SGI for a lot of my early career... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.stealthboy.com/)
It was SIGGRAPH 2000. New Orleans. I got an invite to the SGI party, and we were all expecting a huge new announcement of a SGI-brand PC graphics card. This would have been the smart move, because about this time PC cards were starting to eat into SGI's markets... So why not use the amazing brand name of SGI and produce a killer PC card? So what did SGI announce? A new line of supercomputers. There were audible groans in the crowd.
Oh well, it was part of history. My Indy still works just fine, and I was even able to update to a newer version of Irix recently... And I'll still wear my SGI shirts, thankyouverymuch
Clusters (Score:2)
(http://www.huskydog.org.uk/)
From where I sit, SGI are primarily a high performance computing company, hence their Altix range. The problem is that 95% of HPC problems run just fine on a cluster, and there just isn't enough business in the 5% of us who's problems realy need a single-system-image machine.
Market share? (Score:2)
(http://juddy.org/)
If you cant really *move* in a lively and limber way when your survival depends on it - to either keep up with the times or keep out of an alligators jaws - time rolls on without you.
If a company spends its days _anchored_ in a particular mode of operation, the fickle stream of "what's current" will erode their foundation, no matter what or who they represented.
To quote Jerry Reed, "When you're hot, you're hot - when you're not, you're not."
There's a whole list [wikipedia.org] of computer companies who were assimilated, died a horrible wilting death, or weirded themselves into extinction.
Who "owns" OpenGL? (Score:1, Offtopic)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 12 2005, @09:37AM)
Enquiring minds are curious.
roadkill on the information highway (Score:1)
Funny (and sad) how times change (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 12, @12:30PM)
A few days after SGI was delisted [google.com], I stumbled across an old (1994) article about SGI [wired.com] while I was poking around in one of my favorite places, the Wired archive [wired.com].
(I'm a huge computer history junkie--if nothing else is happening, I can amuse myself for hours digging up old computer stuff on the web. And if you're ever in the San Francisco Bay Area, I highly recommend visiting the Computer History museum [computerhistory.org].)
Anyway, the article has this quote from SGI founder Jim Clark [wikipedia.org]:
Clark is not afraid to publicly dis a company like Apple, much as Steve Jobs once mocked IBM.
"Apple," Jim Clark will sigh, as if he were talking about a horse on its way to the glue factory. "They're not doing anything... Apple blew it."
Then, with a dismissive wave of his hand, and just the hint of a grin: "I think they're in serious trouble."
Funny how things can change in 12 years.
Fond Memories (Score:1)
I got to use a flight training simulator running on a 32 processor Onyx (f'ing beautiful machine) with three 21 inch monitors. Even today it would still be cool just for the 32 CPU SMP and multimonitor gaming/training, and I saw all this around 1992.
Then it was on to some 3D workstations running wavefront. I had come from the C64-Amiga-PC branch of our computing family tree. I had even worked with the video toaster & lightwave at college, but nothing has impressed me more then seeing wavefront running on an SGI. My little 486 DX2/50 rendering a 800x600 Imagine3D image in six hours looked rather pathetic to say the least!
Even though most of the software today has far better features and output, I'll always think of the SGI as the pinnacle of 3D rendering. That's probably because of the huge impression I was left with because of SGI & Alias.
Single system image supercomputing (Score:2)
(http://www.dashboardbuddha.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 12 2004, @12:40AM)
Single system image supercomputing offers a way to tackle some problems that can't be partitioned and also to make life easier for scientific programmers who are not well versed in distributed computing theory and practice. It would be a shame to see one of the last companies with that design philosophy disappear along with the technology and will to continue to implement supercomputer designs that don't follow the latest "fad".
ed
Investor Relations page (Score:2)
Sad day indeed :( (Score:2)
(http://www.opengeek.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday July 07, @02:25PM)
Over the years, IRIX and SGI have been good to me. Thought I would put a few things down here that were worth it:
-never lost a filesystem. Many folks I worked with carried their configuration from machine type to machine type over the years. (indy, o2, octane)
-love the interactivity of the desktop. Still do actually. It's clean, fast and makes sense. The extra desks function is just great for administrating lots of PC machines these days. Just run vncviewer on as many desks as you have machines to handle and go. Since IRIX ignores ctrl-alt-delete, when running full screen one forgets they are not on the local machine at times.
-be sure and swing by nekochan.net. Great IRIX community who loves the machines.
My O2 is slow sometimes, but it sure corners well. One thing I just love about IRIX is it's task scheduler. Even when the machine is just hammered, it's interactivity remains very high. Wish we could see more of that in other OSes today. We do, but it just does not feel quite the same.
-Red mouse pointer! Brilliant, have made a set for every OS since.
OS documentation! Oh man, if we only had that level of documentation for other Oses. Not only do you get to understand how your OS works, but also get an education at the same time. I miss the 'sgi way' of thinking about things the most sometimes.
My biggest peeve was with the 320 / 540 series machines. Shared memory like the O2, but with a nice fast CPU. (I know it's Intel, but who really cares?) That machine was gonna run Linux and it was going to be the premiere workstation with integrated video, massive textures on 3D models, etc.... Well, microsoft legal and sgi legal hosed that with the drivers necessary being buried for all time, right after the box was shown at siggraph...
Bastards.
Lots more to say, maybe later.
Like Abe Vigoda... (Score:2)
I told you so! (Score:2)
Nice to see them spending our tax dollars on hardware that is already obsolete.
This is not a troll, just a catharsistic reaction to stupid management on a government program.
a Martyr to a Dream (Score:1)
When I was 10 I remember seeing a demo of 3D shutter glasses on an SGI. I remember reading about C.A.V.E. I remember walking up to one of those big shiny black SGI demo trucks and being blown away by immersive 3D environments being rendered in real-time when my dads state-of-the-art Pentium 66 could barely push 1000 polygons at 320x240 x 24 fps.
SGI is not a company; it is a cult. It is the epitome of the euphoria of the '90s tech boom, and a beautiful abstract dream of turning pure computer engineering in to visual imagination. If it weren't for the concepts that SGI's engineers turned in to realities in the late '80s and early '90s, PC graphics of today would be a tiny gray fragment of what they are today.
As far as I'm concerned, SGI shouldn't live on as a crummy corporate entity with none of the spirit and attitude that made them great (I mean, they got rid of the spinning cube, fer gods sakes!). The memory of those such as myself who were indelibly impressed by the style and power of those SGI masterpieces will always remember those feelings of true awe they inspired, and we will seek them out again, on whatever platform is at hand. Whatever detractors may say about commodity hardware and performance levels, it hardly matters. SGI did it first, and they did it with *style*
Well, they could go the SCO route... (Score:2)
(http://www.msbpodcast.com/)
Does SCO actually have any customers left?
Opinion! (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Sunday August 20 2006, @09:16PM)
There was just NO way they could justify the same margins on expensive workstation gear when people could buy commodity PC's with Intel/AMD and AGP video cards.
Just my opinion of course.
I rode it down... (Score:2)
(http://www.aliassketchbookpro.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday September 04 2005, @10:37AM)
This ch. 11 deal is (IMHO) the end result of a continuing and unbroken string of totally boneheaded decisions by Sr Management at SGI that started about 12 years ago and still hasn't let up.
The end of a once great and cool company.
Twister... (Score:2)
RIP indeed (Score:1)
GL (ie. OpenGL), Nintendo 64, STL, VRML.. all pioneered by that fantastic company. I just hope that everyone left finds somewhere with half as much know-how, attitude and insight. google??
OpenGL users take notice! (Score:1)
(http://www.bushidohacks.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 02, @02:44PM)
Oh man. (Score:2)
(no joke, I'm using one as a coffee table, 'cause my back isn't up to lugging it out to the curb)
Re:When a corporation goes down.. (Score:1)
Re:When a corporation goes down.. (Score:2, Funny)
buck rogers (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:3dfx was minor player but... (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday February 10 2006, @06:33PM)
Re:OpenGL? (Score:4, Informative)
No.
and now that SGI will more than likely be leaving the playing field, wont this mean that OGL will belong to microsoft?
No, the OpenGL ARB controls OpenGL, not SGI. Check the website [opengl.org].
who will more than likely take it, lock it up, and sue the living fuck out of anyone who implements it? (read, makes free software implementations without paying absurd royalty costs)
No. SGI is far from the most important company relying on OpenGL. Check the ARB member list: 3DLabs, Apple, ATI, Dell, IBM, Intel, NVIDIA, SGI, and Sun Microsystems.
OpenGL is fine.
Re:OpenGL? (Score:1)