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This article is from 1997, but the comparison to Apple is amusing: SGI's sexy image prompted a Wall Street analyst to label it the new Apple. Sadly for SGI, th

by apowell 17y ago

This article is from 1997, but the comparison to Apple is amusing: SGI's sexy image prompted a Wall Street analyst to label it the new Apple. Sadly for SGI, that may prove all too true. Now, like Apple Computer Inc., the Mountain View (Calif.) company is a stark anomaly in booming Silicon Valley.

robin_reala 17y ago
I went and looked for the date after this sentence: While rivals such as Sun Microsystems Inc. ride the Internet wave and even IBM enjoys a comeback, SGI has been mostly an onlooker at the tech party.
gvb 17y ago
Yes, it is very interesting to look back at the ashes <-> roses transformations since 1997 (mostly roses -> ashes). -------- Ashes -> roses * Apple -------- Roses -> Ashes * SUN * Java (debatable, but the article waxes poetic about Sun Microsystems "which stole SGI's panache and profits by turning its own interactive-TV efforts into the popular Net software Java" except Java never became very popular on the Net, more on the server side and embedded). * Netscape * HotWired and Virtual Vineyards (who?)
- ivenkys 17y ago
  Well, Virtual Vineyards are : http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1966.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1966.html
- ajross 17y ago
  I don't think Java's status is really that debateable. It's a huge success, albeit not in the browser where it was originally targetted. Java changed the way IT departments look at software engineering, and to date its only significant competitor is a language designed expressly to compete against it by cloning its best features. Hackers don't like it, and Sun never found a way to get much revenue from it. But Java as a product and a platform can only be described as an unqualified success.
  - seldo 17y ago
    I've never really understood why Java took off in the enterprise the way it did. Was it just the automatic garbage collection and no pointers was a killer feature over C++?
    - ajross 17y ago
      For a certain class of developers: yes, it is. The IT world needs to be able to build big projects with big teams of mediocre talent. They can't handle the pointer bugs of C++, not the runtime-only bugs of dynamic languages. Java was a breath of fresh air in this world.
riffic 17y ago
hah, their Mountain View campus is now the Googleplex

by apowell 17y ago

robin_reala 17y ago

I went and looked for the date after this sentence: While rivals such as Sun Microsystems Inc. ride the Internet wave and even IBM enjoys a comeback, SGI has been mostly an onlooker at the tech party.

gvb 17y ago

Yes, it is very interesting to look back at the ashes <-> roses transformations since 1997 (mostly roses -> ashes). -------- Ashes -> roses * Apple -------- Roses -> Ashes * SUN * Java (debatable, but the article waxes poetic about Sun Microsystems "which stole SGI's panache and profits by turning its own interactive-TV efforts into the popular Net software Java" except Java never became very popular on the Net, more on the server side and embedded). * Netscape * HotWired and Virtual Vineyards (who?)

ivenkys 17y ago
Well, Virtual Vineyards are : http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1966.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1966.html
ajross 17y ago
I don't think Java's status is really that debateable. It's a huge success, albeit not in the browser where it was originally targetted. Java changed the way IT departments look at software engineering, and to date its only significant competitor is a language designed expressly to compete against it by cloning its best features. Hackers don't like it, and Sun never found a way to get much revenue from it. But Java as a product and a platform can only be described as an unqualified success.
- seldo 17y ago
  I've never really understood why Java took off in the enterprise the way it did. Was it just the automatic garbage collection and no pointers was a killer feature over C++?
  - ajross 17y ago
    For a certain class of developers: yes, it is. The IT world needs to be able to build big projects with big teams of mediocre talent. They can't handle the pointer bugs of C++, not the runtime-only bugs of dynamic languages. Java was a breath of fresh air in this world.

riffic 17y ago

hah, their Mountain View campus is now the Googleplex