Silicon Graphics Inc is investing $500m in shares to get into the graphics and multimedia applications software business with the acquisitions of Toronto, Ontario-based Alias Research Inc, and Wavefront Technologies Inc, Santa Barbara, California. Alias provided key software used in the making of Jurassic Park; Wavefront is an imaging and animation software company that had been bankrolled by CSK Corp of Japan, which also acquired Thomson-CSF SA’s Thomson Digital Image Inc for Wavefront. Alias holders will get the 0.90 Silicon Graphics shares for each Alias, Wavefront holders get 0.49 shares for each Wavefront. The acquisitions will account for about 9% of the enlarged Silicon Graphics entity. Silicon Graphics will put them into a new wholly-owned independent software unit to develop tools for the creation of digital content under Rob Burgess, currently president of Alias
