SGI layoffs 250 workers, including 33 in Chippewa Falls Comments: This message did not originate

Published: Friday, March 3, 2006 11:39 AM CST

The following is a press release issued by SGI this morning in which the company announced it was laying off 250 workers, of which 33 people are be from its Chippewa Falls plant:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Dennis McKenna, the CEO of Silicon Graphics (OTC: SGID), today unveiled his first major moves to achieve the goal of returning the company to profitability. McKenna is taking decisive action implementing a new organizational structure that is based on a distributed and collaborative management model, with a philosophy to drive responsiveness, flexibility and accountability throughout the organization.

As part of this, approximately 12 percent of the workforce or 250 positions in specific areas will be eliminated in the restructuring.

In addition, SGI will continue to move forward with the previously announced cost reduction programs, increasing the total annualized savings objective to $150 million by the end of 2006. Together these actions will result in a flattened organization and simplified business processes and structures.

The total incremental restructuring charge, including severance and other charges, is expected to be approximately $20 million, and incurred over the next several quarters, as the international impacts generally take longer to complete. SGI's severance programs provide, where practical, payments to be made over the same period in which the payroll expenses otherwise would have been incurred, with the objective of minimizing incremental cash expense.

"As promised in late January, the goal for my first 30 days at SGI was to solidify a strong business foundation and buttemble an organization that is laser-focused on end," said McKenna. "We've made tough decisions and we thank all SGI employees for their hard work and commitment."

Product Portfolio

McKenna's next strategic step is to effectively position SGI's existing products for better differentiation in the marketplace. The Company will consolidate its compute server and visualization platform, and support customers' visualization needs by leveraging best-of-breed, industry-standard, and open-source graphics partnerships. In addition, the Company will aggressively pursue new markets in the enterprise space, which are an excellent match for SGI's highly scalable servers and high-performance storage solutions. SGI helps these companies efficiently manage big data problems through its unique technologies, including its NUMAflex global shared memory, NAS and SAN solutions. Finally, the company will bring new products to market within different price-performance bands, specifically targeting the mid-range.

"One thing that is not changing is that customers remain our top priority," said McKenna. "SGI is committed to offering services and solutions to our customers that solve their high-performance computing needs."

Corporate Financing

The board of directors continues to explore all strategic and financial options as management moves to stabilize the business.

"Critical obstacles are still in the road and we are actively recruiting to make strategic hires to bring in the right skill sets needed in channel, product, and business development to achieve our objectives and complete this turnaround," McKenna continued.

Management Changes

SGI also announced today the resignation of CFO Jeff Zellmer and departure of COO Warren Pratt, who are leaving SGI to pursue personal interests. Kathy Lanterman, currently the corporate controller at SGI, will replace Jeff Zellmer as CFO.

"Both Jeff and Warren have made significant contributions to SGI and we wish them well in their future endeavors," McKenna concluded. "Kathy brings to the CFO role a strong history of financial leadership and operational experience. I am confident that she will execute a seamless transition."

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