Top executives from SGI's Broadcast Business Unit in Europe are to spin off from Silicon Graphics, Inc. (OTC: SGID) to form an independent company, Silex Media. This follows an earlier announcement today from SGI.

Silex Media will incorporate the existing Silicon Graphics Broadcast Europe team, with Stephan K. Schindler, currently the unit's General Manager, as CEO. The move is being carried out with the 100% financial backing of SGI Japan, a US$200 million company in its own right, which executed a similar move four years ago, and recently received financial backing from Sony Corporation.

Silex Media, which will continue to work closely with SGI, aims to offer IT-based broadcast solutions and systems integration services to European media broadcasters seeking to exploit data-centric media workflows.

Having successfully managed the transition from a pure component supplier to an end-to-end solution provider and system integrator for digital conversation projects, SGI earlier launched the SGI Open Broadcast Initiative. This Initiative enables broadcasters to move away from proprietary-designed vertical solutions and to adopt the best-of-breed applications and solutions in their transition from analog to digital infrastructures—handling vast amounts of data more efficiently and cost-effectively and allowing for the ingestion, sharing and storage of content within and between facilities at speeds faster than real-time.

Key to its success in Europe, SGI has architected, integrated and provided broadcasters with digital IT infrastructures capable of managing their soaring volumes of data as they move from proprietary video-based facilities to standards-based IT data-centric models. In making their move from analog to digital infrastructures, broadcasters throughout Europe have seen IT as more efficient and cost-effective allowing for the ingestion, sharing and storage of content within and between facilities at speeds faster than real-time.