HPCtraining.com and SGI

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Here’s something I didn’t know: if you follow the URL hpctraining.com (a good URL by the way), you come to SGI’s training site. The list Atempo, Intel, LSI, Novell, OpenCFD, Platform, Scali, and Spectra as training partners. Add that URL to the company’s latest announcement that they are adding training for OpenFOAM to their portfolio, it seems that SGI might be trying to weave a parachute for its falling stock price by building up businesses outside of its hardware line.

If I’m reading the whois database correctly the URL was actually registered by Silicon Graphics Limited in the UK (SGI’s European operating unit, I presume) on 2006, updated in 2008, and currently expires in 2009 (sgi.com expires in 2009 as well).

So this isn’t a bad idea, and actually I fantasize about starting a training company myself. I think a problem that SGI will have to overcome is what is at least an appearance that their training organization, no matter how firewalled it ever becomes, cannot be “vendor neutral.” A step that they could take toward resolving that issue is to make a separate operating company with a name other than SGI.

On the other hand, I could be just the only person on the planet who didn’t already know about this…anyone else? Anyone from the company care to comment on the strategy?