9. silicon graphics - – - – $359 mm – - – - high performance computing - – - – - sgi
10. computer associates – - - $281M – - – - automation – - – — – - – - – — – ctgx
silicon graphics is a real silicon valley pioneer that got it’s start at stanford university. clark was involved in a project at xerox palo alto research center and came up with a new 3-d real time microprocessor called the “geometry engine“. clark left academia and launched silicon graphics. sgi went public at $3 a share in the late 80′s and the stock went up to $30 a share. because of management and marketing problems clark and his group were forced to sell a large equity stake in order to continue operations. seeing the rise of pc’s equipped with new software clark tried to steer the company in a new direction. at first it was less expensive commercialized versions of sgi’s high end products. after that it was interactive television. sgi considered clark’s ideas unacceptable. clark left in 1994.
even ordinary consumers are professional these days. strategic planners could say that silicon graphics like a lot of specialized high tech companies lost their war with big companies. hp and ibm provide easy to customize solutions based on their standardized hardware and software products. adobe acrobat 3D autodesk mudbox 2010 corel bryce v.5.0 imsi turbo cad v.4.0 mac deluxe 2d/3d are a few of the many 3-d graphics software packages found on yahoo software.
3-d microprocessor “sets” are available from nvidia intel texas instruments and apple. these days apple computer is picking up the high end graphics market. silicon graphics was a wild ride for all of silicon valley. jim clark at the helm. netscape ended up a much larger version of the same kind of problem though clark accomplished a lot and became very wealthy. jim clark is a billionaire. his companies include silion graphics netcenter healtheon mycfo and shutterfly.
fbi special agent mueller should take a tip from jim clark. the first idea right out of the box is worthless. in fact mueller missed the sell out point shortlyfter the new yorker cover suggested his fascination with “the hood” is a looser. troubletown thought the new yorker cover storyboard was so fascinating they did an org chart for mueller’s worthless evil empire [oil spill suggestion box]. the latest is as usual washington picks up the slack and denounces bureaucratic bungling from “scooter” mueller himself. tomtomorrow and everybody else wants to know why the terrorists are still winning the war on terrorism “what could possibly go wrong?” 11 years later mueller still thinks he’s funny. that’s 11 years after 9.11. worthless. do it anyway. do it until i get what i want. sf hair salons are on hold pending new reengineering plans. i’ll hire my own hit squad right here in san francisco from excons and homeless people.
that’s the director of the fbi special agent mueller still thinking he’s funny.
worthless.
mueller got as far as “fight the future“. that was when the x-files were fun and it was mulder not mueller and scully.
write the future is the nike advertising campaign [nke $20B] that won world wide acclaim for high tech production and real athletes.
the black and white new york flag opened the world cup final. just like the black and white billboard high over san francisco union square. did it get bigger just this last week leading up to the world cup final or was it my imagination. black and white is a world wide marketing phenomenon. fifa.com says the 2010 world cup will be watched by record number of viewers. the official estimate is 700 million will watch the the world cup final. nike “write the future” is a legendary campaign designed specifically to reach world cup soccer fans with a specific message. nike is fun and technically advanced. nike describes the ad campaign as “action-packed film that brings together some of the world’s greatest players to inspire football lovers and sports fans around the world”. i watched the world up at san francisco civic center via satellite from worldcuplive.com along with a full house of san francisco adventurers. myself a netherlands fan it was a difficult moment to see spain finally score in overtime and win by 1 goal. emotionally i was with the rest of the adoring dutch fans in museumplace amsterdam. the rest of the day was devoted to figuring out how to be as entrepreneurial and customer driven as nike.
“valleylist” planned new titles and sponsorship for computing
