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The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics

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346 points BirAdam | 1 comments | 05 Apr 24 16:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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martinpw ◴[05 Apr 24 18:13 UTC] No.39945361[source]▶
Whenever this topic comes up there are always comments saying that SGI was taken by surprise by cheap hardware and if only they had seen it coming they could have prepared for it and managed it.

I was there around 97 (?) and remember everyone in the company being asked to read the book "The Innovator's Dilemma", which described exactly this situation - a high end company being overtaken by worse but cheaper competitors that improved year by year until they take the entire market. The point being that the company was extremely aware of what was happening. It was not taken by surprise. But in spite of that, it was still unable to respond.

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1. yndoendo ◴[05 Apr 24 18:46 UTC] No.39945689[source]▶
When statements like X was better than Y come up. I always think of "All models are wrong, but some are useful", from statistician George E. P. Box, and rephrase it as "All models are flawed, but some are useful" so that model becomes ambiguous, such as a smartphone, TV, computer, car, programing language, programing design pattern, social media platform, and so on.

Price-point, SGI technology was a financially flawed model pertaining to the growing market and more useful than flawed performance of the low cost technology market.

Did anyone at SGI try to simply buy the low tech products, play with them a bit, and see about slowly integrating your tech to make that low tech product just a little better than the competition and cost effect for the market?