[svlug] Silicon Valley economic woes (was: Linux and hardware)

[Marc MERLIN]

On Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 03:13:01AM -0700, Ian Kluft wrote:
> >Wow, I thought I was the only one on the planet that saw that synergy.  I
> >thought sure SGI and VA would eventually merge, it made so much sense at
> >the time.
> 
> You weren't the only one thinking or joking about that...
 
Actually, all of VA did look at that option.
 
> During VA's high-flying days before and immediately following their IPO,
> I remember some of us joking that they might have to buy SGI just for
> the buildings, in case Lockheed wasn't moving out of buildings fast 
> enough for VA's appetite. :-)

A  little  known fact  is  that  SGI's  new  campus (building  40-43,  which
incidently is almost all  they have left now) is on land  that has a special
lease of  something like $1/sq foot,  but that special price  disappears the
day SGI dies, moves out, or is bought out.
For VA to benefit from that land, SGI would have had to buy us :-)

As for Lockheed, I don't know the details,  but my guess is that by the time
we actually really needed to move out  (we grew 3-4 times and took over boca
research, in the building next door),  Yahoo had already taken over whatever
Lockheed land  was available at  the time, and  whenever some piece  of land
became available, there was  a list of big companies fighting  to get it (at
prices that were unreasonable)

As much as I hate that we moved to Fremont, it seems that at the time, there
wasn't much of a choice.

The irony is that now we would fit nicely in our old building, which just so
happens to almost be down the street from my house :-)
(we were told there are no plans to do anything like that though)

Marc
-- 
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
  
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