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.

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