Editing Silicon Graphics (section)

{{Short description|1981–2009 American computing company}}
{{About|Silicon Graphics, Inc|the company that acquired its assets|Silicon Graphics International}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Silicon Graphics, Inc.
| logo = [[File:SGI wordmark.svg|160px]]
| type = Public
| traded_as        = {{NYSE was|SGI}}<br />{{OTC Pink was|SGID.pk}}<br />{{NASDAQ was|SGIC}}
| foundation = {{start date and age|1981|11|9}}<br />[[Mountain View, California|Mountain View]], [[California]], U.S.<ref name=casos>{{cite web
 | title        = Business Entity Detail
 | url          = http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/
 | work         = Business Search database
 | publisher    = [[California Secretary of State]]
 | access-date  = December 30, 2013
 | url-status   = dead
 | archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20150315010639/http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/
 | archive-date = March 15, 2015}}</ref>
| fate = [[Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code|Chapter 11 bankruptcy]]; assets acquired by [[Rackable Systems]], which renamed itself [[Silicon Graphics International|Silicon Graphics International Corp.]]
| defunct = {{end date and age|2009|5|11}}
| location_country = [[Sunnyvale, California|Sunnyvale]], [[California]], U.S.
| key_people = [[James H. Clark|Jim Clark]]<br />[[Wei Yen]]<br />[[Kurt Akeley]]<br />[[Edward R. McCracken|Ed McCracken]]<br />Thomas Jermoluk<br />[[Marc Hannah]]<br />[[Richard Belluzzo|Rick Belluzzo]]
| industry = [[Computer hardware]] and [[software]]
| products = [[High-performance computing]], [[Visualization (graphic)|visualization]] and [[Computer storage|storage]]
}}

'''Silicon Graphics, Inc.''' (stylized as '''SiliconGraphics''' before 1999, later rebranded '''SGI''', historically known as '''Silicon Graphics Computer Systems''' or '''SGCS''') was an American [[high-performance computing]] manufacturer, producing [[computer hardware]] and [[software]]. Founded in [[Mountain View, California]], in November 1981 by [[James H. Clark]], the computer scientist and entrepreneur perhaps best known for founding [[Netscape]] (with [[Marc Andreessen]]).<ref>Not to be confused with the [[James Clark (programmer)|James J. Clark]], the software engineer who was once the namer and technical lead of the work group who developed [[XML]].</ref> Its initial market was [[3D graphics]] [[computer workstation]]s, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.

Early systems were based on the [[RealityEngine|Geometry Engine]] that Clark and [[Marc Hannah]] had developed at [[Stanford University]], and were derived from Clark's broader background in [[computer graphics]]. The Geometry Engine was the first [[very-large-scale integration]] (VLSI) implementation of a [[geometry pipeline]], specialized hardware that accelerated the "inner-loop" geometric computations needed to display three-dimensional images. For much of its history, the company focused on 3D imaging and was a major supplier of both hardware and software in this market.

Silicon Graphics reincorporated as a [[Delaware corporation]] in January 1990. Through the mid to late-1990s, the rapidly improving performance of commodity [[Wintel]] machines began to erode SGI's stronghold in the 3D market. The porting of [[Autodesk Maya|Maya]] to other platforms was a major event in this process. SGI made several attempts to address this, including a disastrous move from their existing [[MIPS architecture|MIPS]] platforms to the [[Intel Itanium]], as well as introducing their own [[Linux]]-based [[Intel IA-32]] based workstations and servers that failed in the market. In the mid-2000s the company repositioned itself as a [[supercomputer]] vendor, a move that also failed.

On April 1, 2009, SGI filed for [[Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code|Chapter 11]] bankruptcy protection and announced that it would sell substantially all of its assets to Rackable Systems, a deal finalized on May 11, 2009, with Rackable assuming the name [[Silicon Graphics International]]. The remnants of Silicon Graphics, Inc. became Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.