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Silicon Graphics Essay, Research Paper

Silicon Graphics: Computers for 3-D

Silicon Graphics, Inc.

(SGI) is a manufacturer of high-end computers specifically designed for

the rendering and manipulation of three-dimensional images. At a time

when computer technology has become increasingly standardized and specialized,

SGI has been described as a throwback to an earlier age of computing because

the company manufactures its own workstations, central processors and

operating software.

Although Silicon Graphics workstations are best known

for their creation of the stunning cinematic effects seen in many recent

Hollywood blockbusters, they are also the tool of choice for a wide range

of applications that require the absolute highest level of 3-D graphic

capability. Examples include flight simulation, product design, scientific

modeling, Internet graphics and gaming software. A list of SGI’s

customers include many of the world’s largest governments and corporations.

SGI’s strong growth over a period of nearly a decade

has been based on its production of successively cheaper workstations

that embody capabilities previously not available at each given price

level. The company has thus been able to create new markets for its products

by stimulating new productive applications of 3-D technology.

Although the price of SGI’s lowest-end workstations

has fallen to about $6,000, the company has chosen not to take the final

step into the highly competitive, low margin market for personal computers

(PCs). This strategy has drawn some criticism from analysts and shareholders

who question where the markets will be found to fuel the company’s

future growth. In response to these concerns (and to an associated drop

in the valuation of their stock) SGI has begun to move into some consumer

markets, producing PC-compatible software and graphics cards. At the same

time, the company continues to cater to its elite market, bringing progressively

greater levels of "supercomputer" power to its upper and mid-level

users.

History and Founding

The success of Silicon Graphics has been built upon the

technological innovations and business instincts of co-founder Jim

Clark. Clark, a Ph.D. computer scientist, took a four-year appointment

at Stanford University for the

express purpose of developing a technology that would serve as the basis

for a start-up company. Clark left Stanford in 1982, along with some of

his colleagues and students, and founded Silicon Graphics. The company’s

objective was to produce computers that would provide greater 3-D capability

than any existing platform by obtaining more efficient use of computing

power.

SGI’s technological success was accomplished by the

application one of Clark’s own innovations, the geometry engine (also

known as a graphics engine). The geometry engine is a method of embedding

complex algorithms for the generation of 3-D images onto the hardware

of a computer chip. The resulting architecture effectively transfers capability

from software to hardware, allowing a computer to almost instantaneously

perform complex 3-D functions that would otherwise require it to read

thousands of lines of code. SGI’s first workstations allowed engineers,

designers and artists, for the first time, to pick-up, rotate, and effectively

"walk through" complex 3-D objects on the screen in real time.

Clark’s describes his own role during the early years

of SGI as providing vision and technological knowledge. To manage the

day-to-day operation of the company, as well as to implement long term

strategy, he hired Ed

McCracken in 1984 to serve as CEO. McCracken, a former division president

at Hewlett-Packard (HP), was reportedly so

anxious to leave his previous employer that he took a very substantial

cut in salary in order to join the fledgling SGI. Although McCracken has

become known for the freewheeling and casual management style he brought

to Silicon Graphics, he has been able to take firm and immediate control

of the company’s operation and its market strategy. It was McCracken

who guided SGI’s move toward lower-priced computers, a formula that

would sustain the company’s growth for the better part of a decade.

McCracken was also responsible for negotiating a series of fruitful deals

and alliances with mega-corporations such as Time-Warner

Cable, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph,

AT&T and Nintendo.

Clark recalls that as a start-up company, Silicon Graphics

was not an overnight sensation. It took a good five years of "preaching

the gospel of 3-D graphics" before sales of SGI’s workstations

really began to take off. The company placed its first workstation on

the market in 1985, and in 1987 introduced its first model with RISC (Reduced

Instruction Set Computer) chip technology. RISC is a unique architecture

that reduces chip complexity, significantly adding to the efficiency of

SGI workstations. The RISC chip used by SGI was manufactured by MIPS Computer

systems. SGI purchased MIPS in 1992, and has manufactured its own RISC

chip since that time.

Almost immediately following the release of SGI’s

first RISC-based system, it was adopted by the US military for the graphic

simulation of weapon trajectories. Within a short time, many of the world’s

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