SILICON GRAPHICS TURNS 3-D IMAGES INTO STUNNING PROFITS by Robert D. Hof with Neil Gross
Reproduced by special permission from the July 18, 1994 issue of Business Week, copyright 1994 McGraw-Hill, Inc. All rights reserved. Any form of copying for other than an individual user's personal reference without express permission of Business Week is prohibited. Further distribution of the Material is strictly forbidden, including but not limited to, posting, emailing, faxing, archiving in a public database, redistributing via a computer network, or in a printed form. McGraw-Hill makes no warranties express or implied as to the accuracy or adequacy of the Material or to warranties or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or use. McGraw-Hill nor anyone else involved in creating, producing or delivering the Material shall be liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising out the use of the Material.
What do you call the ability to conjure up computer-generated dinosaurs for the movie Jurassic Park and make them look so stunningly real that the audience gasps and cringes? Or to bring President John F. Kennedy and John Lennon alive to meet actor Tom Hanks in this summer's Forrest Gump? Or to let you fly impromptu dogfights in flight simulators so convincing you can lose your lunch?
Mere parlor trickery? O.K., if virtual reality and velociraptors sound old hat, check this out: The same computers that performed these stunts have also helped design everything from jumbo jets to an ice-cream-bar shape that minimizes melting in the midday sun. And by giving doctors ways to locate tumors with pinpoint precision, these machines are instilling new hope in victims of once-inoperable brain cancer.
It's all the work of the most magical computer maker on the planet: Silicon Graphics Inc. It may not have the name recognition of an Apple Computer Inc. or an IBM. But not since Apple dazzled the market with the trend-setting Macintosh has a computer company so captured the public imagination or promised so much for the future. From movies to molecular science, interactive TV to hyperactive video games, the digital imagery conjured up by SGI technology is pushing the computer industry into a new dimension--the third one, to be exact.
SGI's magic: eye-popping three-dimensional graphics. Its engineering workstations and computer servers transform reams of mind-numbing data into 3-D images that mere mortals can comprehend--whether these images are airplane wings, population trends, or a theoretical universe. It's not just playing back video, which any multimedia PC can do. With Silicon Graphics machines, intricately detailed and textured images can be turned and viewed from any angle or modified at will. It's no wonder they're used--or coveted--by the most demanding scientists and technology gurus.
In an industry marked by huge hype, Silicon Graphics is the genuine article: a truly innovative company with clearly unique products. "They're the new Apple," says Morgan Stanley & Co. analyst Steven M. Milunovich. Then, mulling Apple's recent struggles, he corrects himself: "The Microsoft of computer graphics."
Heady stuff. But it doesn't overstate the ambitions of Chief Executive Edward R. McCracken. The 50-year-old engineer, a 26-year veteran of Silicon Valley, aims to bring SGI's ``visual computing'' to a wider audience in the same way Apple's easy-to-use Macintosh opened computing to the technologically challenged. Sales of multimedia personal computers with rudimentary graphics are already booming. McCracken figures that SGI's 3-D graphics will give the masses an entertaining roadmap to cruise the Information Superhighway.
At first blush, McCracken seems an unlikely leader for SGI's bold mission. An electrical engineer by training, he hails from a Midwestern farming family and is known for his stiff, introverted demeanor. In short, he's no Steve Jobs. But don't be fooled. McCracken isn't your typical CEO: He encourages what is now Silicon Valley's most freewheeling corporate culture and even takes time from his schedule to teach meditation classes for harried execs.
Most important, over the past several years, McCracken has steered SGI into a series of initiatives and partnerships that put it laps ahead of other computer makers on the Infobahn. When Time Warner Cable's interactive-TV trial starts in Orlando this fall, for example, SGI video servers will dish up movies on demand to homes with set-top boxes built around SGI chips. And the next big push by Nintendo Co. will be a videogame machine being designed jointly with SGI. In June, SGI signed on AT&T to help sell SGI video servers and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. to use SGI servers to test interactive TV in Japan. "Everybody in the world seems to want to do business with us," says SGI attorney William M. Kelly.
Go To:
