History of the SGI User Group

On January 22, 2003, Bob Bishop announced SGI's plans to form a worldwide SGI User Group. To introduce the program to customers, SGI hosted the SGI Technical Users' Conference June 12-13, 2003 in Mountain View, California. The event gave SGI customers an opportunity to network, to share challenges and learn technical solutions, and to provide feedback to SGI on existing and future products. "Scientists, engineers and other technical computing users face increasingly unique challenges," said Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO of SGI. "As SGI's highly scalable Linux and IRIX systems set performance records for technical computing, high-performance users will benefit tremendously from regular interaction with colleagues involved in similar pursuits." At that Technical Users Conference, attendee's appointed an organizing committee to establish the SGI User Group where customers establish a global community of like-minded professionals--and will give SGI an opportunity to integrate even closer to our customer base.

The name chosen was the Silicon Graphics Worldwide User Group, with the acronym SGIUG. The logo was developed along with plans to create a formal Board of Directors and officers. SGI provided the first user group Web site where the Organizing Committee could post event details which allowed customers to register online for the 2004 technical conference and submit proposals for papers. Later the web site was moved to the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, where it is located today. We appreciate their support.

The Organizing Committee gathered potential leaders for the user group and organized the first independent conference, SGIUG2004 held in Orlando May 23-27, 2004.

At the SGIUG2004 Conference, the attendee's approved the formal Board of Directors and Officers as proposed by the Organizing Committee. This Board is now working to create SGIUG into a legal entity, with bylaws and procedures for membership, and plan the SGIUG2005 Conference. SGIUG may decide to have a presence at other HPC Conferences. At the SGIUG2005 Conference the members approved the existing Board to continue and plan the 2006 Conference. The SGIUG is now incorporated as a non-profit.

Open to all SGI customers in every industry, the SGIUG User Group will cover all SGI systems, with a focus on technical users. As the SGI User Group matures we will provide more services. The SGIUG.ORG web site will serve as the portal for SGI Users and customers, registration, for information collection, coordination, and dissemination, and for fostering an online community.