Where in the world is SGI?

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is an old Silicon Graphics building. I drive almost daily past the GooglePlex, also ex-SGI. And the surrounding buildings now house a number of smaller companies, such as Pathscale. It made me wonder: where in the world did the shrinking Silicon Graphics retreat to? Sure, I could have looked it up on their website, but it is more fun to drive around in search of SGI.

The Mountain View Area between Shoreline and San Antonio has quite a history. Many years ago, not only was it home to the big campus of SGI, also rival Sun Microsystems had its campus there. Only last year did Sun move out of its last Mountain View building and brought the Sun Labs team to the Sun Menlo Park campus. Today, the old Sun Campus houses Intuit. Google moved into SGI buildings, as well as some buildings formerly leased by Sun.

GooglePlex in Mountain View at the old SGI buildings

Driving around the neighbourhood, just before getting to Shoreline Park, I made a right onto Crittenden Lane. From far away, it looks like the road will end up near the big NASA Ames windtunnel. A great picture opportunity, I thought. Out of nowhere popped up the current SGI campus. "Legacy campus," it is called. Here are a few pictures I snapped on a dark cloudy Friday evening, when the rest of the Bay Area braces for the incomming storm tonight.

Technorati: Silicon Graphics Inc, GooglePlex