Rackable Rebranding as SGI

In an unexpected and strange move Rackable announced that they will be re branding their company as SGI. From their press release “The Rackable name will become the brand for the SGI x86 cluster compute products. Rackable will join our other industry-recognized brands – such as ICE Cube, Altix, InfiniteStorage, CloudRack, MicroSlice, Origin, and VUE – to comprise the new SGI.”

While this may be ancient history to most SGI had a line of x86 products that failed miserably. Systems like the SGI 320 workstation that used UMA technology and their full line of rack mounted servers that never sold well like the SGI 1200. SGI's original x86 servers had real engineering inside them and were not just re branded commodity systems and still did not sell. With cost a major factor in most data center build outs its really questionable if "brand name" really matters anymore. What most companies look for when selecting server hardware is price, performance and service rather than a pretty logo in their racks.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the future. A brand represents much more than what can be purchased in a contract. It's a history of engineering and support. Customers can see through an SGI logo attached to an inferior product. Rackable has bought some really big shoes to fill. Hopefully their commitment is more than wanting pretty logo's for their products. That logo alone did not sell SGI's x86 systems. Hopefully Rackable is committed to the same levels of performance, innovation and engineering as SGI was.