http://www.osnews.com/story/1858/SGI_SPECIAL_Interviewing_SGI_Employees Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:06:11 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Congrats Eugenia! Hope these special days will be common, especially with those little OS needing exposure. They deserve it! Wed, 02 Oct 2002 17:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks Cesar!
We did a FreeBSD week-long special last January (check our archives), but I think we will continue doing this for OSes that are not mainstream. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 17:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In addition, Silicon Graphics workstations keep our customers on the crest of innovation as we continue to break new ground in the industry.

OMG, I thought SGI was as real computer company. I hope they quicky fire the guy who came up with an atrocious piece of English like this, and hire someone who speaks C instead. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 19:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia,

I also enjoy the special days / weeks very much! If possible, please have them more often.

Thanks! Wed, 02 Oct 2002 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Way to go, Eugenia! Stories like these we would never see elsewhere! Wed, 02 Oct 2002 20:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow! I think I'll print this interview out and frame it as a shining pinnacle of marketspeak. I don't think I've read an interview that manages all three of marketspeak's goals:

1. Never answer the question directly.
2. Rephrase the question in the answer and spit it back at the interviewer. Sprinkle liberally with completely unrelated facts about your product
3. Repeat phrases like "target growth markets" "customer total work flow solutions". Particularly when asked a direct technical question that requires insight and lateral thinking in the response. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 20:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks! Wed, 02 Oct 2002 21:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? but I still enjoyed the read - I love this stuff, keep it up Eugenia!! Wed, 02 Oct 2002 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The whole thing wasn't market speak. The biggest area of marketspeak was on the question of "How does an SGI workstation compare to a top of the line PC workstation?". In other words "why would we pay ten times more for an SGI?". The answer, from the horses mouth is apparantely the same as everyone else's on this topic "I have no idea!". I'll give them a hats off on their NUMA interconnect. I'll also give them a hats off for their workstations from 5-10 years ago. However, with current technology, it just doesn't make sense to buy an SGI over a regular PC for 99% of what needs to be done. I'm not talking about word processing applications here either. I mean 99% of what people need workstations for can probably be done as fast or faster with a modern PC of signficantly less cost. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The one quality I remember from the days I administered IRIX 6.5 was the fact that SGI provided me incredible technical support. At least the people I dealt with, on more than one occasion, were always helpful, nice and never condescending. Maybe I was just lucky, but that is a huge plus in my book. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 21:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You were lucky. We would wait days for returned calls. Worst of all we had about one hundred SGI's of various sizes. We were getting acceptable support right up until we sold our aged O2k to buy a faster machine from a competitor of theirs. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 22:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My support was always great too. Lots of good stuff outta SGI--docs, help sys, manuals (remember manuals?), easy hw asm/disasm... And I really learned the meaning of "it just runs" courtesy of IRIX.

Thanks Eugenia, for giving space to something that deserves it, IMO. "Jewel of Unix" fits in my book. I too, hoped for less buzzworded marketspeak, but, at least they answered. Maybe they didn't know you can be trusted

Everyone has got to eat, but, given the chance to ask, I really would have loved details on the SGI rocket scientists responsible for this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26125.html

Thanks SGI, for OpenGL, xfs (thanks for GPL-ing!), 64-bit...and for letting me sleep well for a lot of years. Shame thinking about what Could Have Been, though, but the world changed. Just mostly impossible to ask bosses for $XX-XXX grand for a box anymore.

At least they're still alive (unlike some of their brethren), so choosing "farm" over "station" at least sort of worked.

I've never appreciated IRIX so much as when trying to replace it with linux--not a shot at linux, just a fact for me in my workplace right now. I still run and support IRIX every day and it still "just runs", but the number of boxes dwindles.

SGI is yet another example of good technology that lost. I wish them well. Wed, 02 Oct 2002 23:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Those questions must have been answered by a PR Rep. SGI didn't answer a good deal of the questions, especialy the one about SGI vs. a PC.

That's why face to face is always best, so you can say, "quit giving me BS and give me answers." Thu, 03 Oct 2002 01:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If they are often - they wouldn't be special anymore, now would it? Thu, 03 Oct 2002 06:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? maybe nivida geforce is for gamers but what about quatro? I would have liked them to anwser not dodge the question. but I don't do video/ cad stuff anyway so np. Thu, 03 Oct 2002 09:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments