Rackable becomes SGI

Rackable takes name of flagging vendor.

Developments of the week in storage

When storage and server vendor Rackable acquired SGI recently, no one expected the company would take the name of a flagging vendor. But that is exactly what happened – Rackable became Silicon Graphics International Corp. this week.

The new SGI will keep Rackable's CEO Mark Barrenechea and most of SGI's employees. It expects to cut 10% of the combined companies' workforce.

Even though Rackable had to spend more for SGI than it originally anticipated – from $25 million to $42.5 million -- the company got a variety of server, workstation and storage equipment from a company once known for the strength of its graphics processing and high-performance computers.

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When storage and server vendor Rackable acquired SGI recently, no one expected the company would take the name of a flagging vendor. But that is exactly what happened – Rackable became Silicon Graphics International Corp. this week.

The new SGI will keep Rackable's CEO Mark Barrenechea and most of SGI's employees. It expects to cut 10% of the combined companies' workforce.

Even though Rackable had to spend more for SGI than it originally anticipated – from $25 million to $42.5 million -- the company got a variety of server, workstation and storage equipment from a company once known for the strength of its graphics processing and high-performance computers.

For now, Rackable (wait, I mean SGI) will keep the SGI branded InfiniteStorage products and Rackable's OmniStor external drive arrays, as well as its Network Storage Servers and Intel-based Solid State Drives.

For the future however there appears to be a lot of overlap between Rackable's and SGI's storage that will have to be worked out. In 2008, Rackable simplified its storage products somewhat – it shed its RapidScale clustered file system appliances.

To add further confusion, Rackable – er, SGI – will use the SGI stock symbol –  even though SGI will be a subsidiary of Rackable Systems. You can read about the Old-SGI and New-SGI here, I hope you aren't totally confused now. I am.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.