No. 1 Story

ACCC clears Optus to scrap HFC network and use NBN instead

The ACCC has cleared, provisionally, the proposed deal between Optus and NBN Co under which Optus is to be paid around $800m to shut down its HFC network and transfer customers onto the NBN. read more

Related Articles

Adoption of cloud computing has reached a tipping point  - but don’t expect legacy...
In yet another blow to the Facebook IPO this week, following the withdrawal of...
Recruitment technology and social media have played a significant role in growing business in...
Kogan's latest Agora tablet offers the joys of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with...
Fancy a 4G Windows Phone? Your wait may be over next Tuesday when Telstra...

The end is nigh for SGI, who's next?

Your IT - Home IT

The end is nigh for high-end workstation manufacturer Silicon Graphics as the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. It is news that will sadden a lot of people besides the SGI shareholders, creditors and the 1800 employees globally who will be directly affected. SGI is renowned as one the great innovators in the area of computer graphics and a provider of top quality hardware.

SGI had appeared to be in trouble for some time before the latest announcment. Two months ago, facing declining revenues, the company made a commitment to cut costs and announced dramatic across the board job cuts.

However, faced with stiff competition from the big hardware players plus plummeting prices due to Moore's Law and the commoditisation of hardware, SGI found itself between a rock and a hard place. Hollywood studios which once required the superior graphics processing capabilities of high-end SGI workstations, found that they could achieve similar effects on much cheaper Intel boxes.

So now the once great computer hardware manufacturer from Silicon Valley looks like it's going to depart into the history books like other great manufacturers of high quality hardware such as Digital Equipment and Tandem. Unfortunately for SGI shareholders though, they won't receive the benefit of being bought out by another IT player. As computer hardware becomes increasingly commoditised and margins keep getting thinner, the question remains: who's next?