I forgot to mention that back in January I began my mock portfolio with a purchase of 1,000 shares of Silicon Graphics, Inc. I'll tell you something -- I am a sucker for this company. I don't necesarily like the financials on it at this point, but the brand and its position in the industry have not lost muster; even while the stock was trading down around $1.
What makes me like their main product line is the fact that they understand the concept of the bottleneck. Inside computers there is a ton of information that is moving from place to place, across bridges, to and from disks, and out to displays. There are various slow-downs involved with each path, much like the streets around town. Some are four-lanes in both directions, some are dirt roads with one-lane bridges. SGI uses proprietary memory access and video buses (paths) that are larger and less restrictive than on your home computer. Do you mind? No, because if you are like me you are hardly ever taxing your memory or video subsystem. But some companies and research organizations do, and that's where SGI's product shines.
For instance, say you are American Airlines and are concerned about the fact that none of your existing pilots have any experience on the Boeing 777's you just ordered. If you wait until the planes arrive in order to begin training, you will be postponing the revenue stream you need to help pay down the debt you entered upon ordering the planes. It makes sense, then, to have your pilots trained ahead of time in order to just put the planes right into their new rotations. Unfortunately, you're the first kid on the block to have that kind of new plane. What do you do?
You call SGI, and they either create custom for you a simulator, or schedule time with your pilots in one of their simulation centers completely outfitted with cockpit hardware and an immersive 3-D environment where you can train pilots in any number of situations the new planes might see. It doesn't come cheap, but their systems are arguably the best at this or any other type of data visualization applications.
So again, I bought a 1,000 shares with my play money and we'll see where it goes.
