Company Performance Metrics
James Clark: FounderPast Role: WebMD, Chairman of the Board of Directors- Gary Szukalski: Senior DirectorPast Role: FileTek Inc., President and Chief Marketing Officer
SGI, Silicon Graphics International Corp., was originally founded as Silicon Graphics Inc. in the early 1980s by Jim Clark, a former Stanford University Professor, and a group of his Stanford graduate students. Clark was initially focused on developing a powerful semiconductor chip (called the Geometry Engine) that would allow small computers to
produce sophisticated three-dimensional graphics. The idea was revolutionary because before this, graphics simulations were often (if not only) done on large mainframe computers.
Hollywood entertainment companies like Lucasfilm and Dreamworks SKG, music video producers and even Disney used SGI products to bring their artistic visions to life. Because of SGI's innovation it was possible to create the T-1000 villain in Terminator 2, the morphing towards the end of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, and even animate Disney's "Beauty and the Beast."
The 90s weren't just a time of creating quality entertainment for all ages. It was also a time of change within the company and developing new insights. Graphics and simulation software weren't the only products the company produced. In the late 90s, SGI's Chief Scientist at the time, John R. Mashey coined the term "Big Data." As a result of this new phenomenon, SGI already had a head start in further developing its workstations, supercomputers and solutions to meet today's extreme data growth.
SGI's specialty of developing high performance computers only increased in 2009 when another change occurred. Rackable Systems purchased Silicon Graphics Inc.'s assets and decided to rename the surviving company, Silicon Graphics International Corp. While we may legally be a completely different company, we have a legacy of over 30 years of experience innovating and developing relevant solutions for our customers.
We've come a long way from only focusing on graphics in the entertainment industry. Now, we are a global leader in high performance solutions for compute, data analytics and data management. Our solutions enable all of our customers (financial institutions, governments, manufacturers, the healthcare industry, retail, universities, automakers, research facilities, even those in the entertainment industry) to accelerate time to discovery, innovation and profitability.
Our ICE™ and UV™ systems are some of the fastest commercial supercomputers in the world. As an added bonus, they are also at the top of the list in terms of energy efficiency. If you've got Big Data challenges, we've got solutions (after all, we did foresee this unique development in the late 90s). When it comes to your storage needs, we offer Intelligent Data Management, Scalable Lustre® Suite Solutions and the InfiniteStorage™ platforms. Our open-systems-based storage solutions leverage an intelligent combination of leading storage technologies to produce tailored systems that meet both performance and budget objectives.
We are the trusted leader in high performance computing. We are SGI.
