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"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."
-- Dr. Who
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SGI REVERTS TO SILICON GRAPHICS INC.
by Jai Natarajan
(January 10, 2001) MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Struggling
computer manufacturer SGI today announced a major
shift in corporate and marketing strategy. The
former leader in high-end servers and workstations,
beset by declining sales and large losses, today vowed
to fight back with a new company name.
Extensive research by Landor Associates pinpointed
the short brand name and silly logo as the single cause
of losses. "The public doesn't care about high costs
of hardware and peripherals, nor about the buggy
operating system or fuzzy product lines. Tests show
clients are really bothered about investing billions
in equipment made by a company with such a short
and meaningless name." said K.B. Landor, CEO
of Landor Associates, from his mansion in Bel Air,
shortly after flying back from a ski vacation in Europe
in his private jet. Landor, 45, has two sons in Harvard and
mansions in Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, Los Altos,
New York and Seattle, built upon his very successful brand naming
business featuring such highflying clients as SGI,
DEC, ILM, ELO, APP, N'Synch and TASP (the artist sporadically
known as Prince).
SGI CEO Rick Belluzzo added "We have even been losing market share
to Digital Equipment Corporation ever since they ceased
to be DEC. Even Intel has five letters in its brand name
fer crying out loud."
"The time has come to fight back. We are laying
off any employees who don't have a middle initial and are
aggressively recruiting senior executives with name prefixes",
added Robin Van Der Lowe Smith-Jones, head of personnel services.
Industry sources are mum about the prospects of a turnaround by this
legendary slumbering giant but they appear to have taken the correct
initial steps.