MS Buys (Some) SGI Patents

FatRatBastard writes "The Reg. is reporting that Microsoft has purchased the rights to most of SGI's 3D patents. Speculation from the Reg hacks is that MS may want the patents more for crushing OpenGL support than for technology they're building inhouse." Well, crush is strong - but it would give them more leverage with some hardware vendors for sure.

Comments

'crush' OpenGL

[nsanit]

I know the original posting said it was strong language, but there are just too many games out there that use OpenGL that are too popular to be crushed.

Besides, OpenGL is goverened by a board of companies, not just SGI.

Re:'crush' OpenGL

[grammar nazi]

1. Company A wants to improve their product.

2. Company A legally learns/purchases/adapts technologies from rival product.

3. As a result, company A's product is improved.

This sounds fair to me. It even sounds *gasp* competitive.

The grammar nazi doesn't have any problems with it. If Microsoft adapted many of the good technologies from Apple, Linux, etc. then I would probably start using it more often.

Re:'crush' OpenGL

[SirSlud]

3. As a result, company A's product is improved.

Often, these types of purchases are made just to run the newly bought foobar through the shredder. It's the easiest and most reliable way to win a competition. (On that note, I won't argue that its not competative .. just, in a bad way.) MS doesn't have much to gain from OpenGL, IMHO, and since the XBox, and Windows, etc is all DirectX'ed, I suspect they'd be more interested in running OpenGL into the ground than learning anything from it, incorperating it into DirectX, and then letting OpenGL go out in the middle of a large sunny grassy field so that they will meet on the market battlefield again. I mean really, I can't think of many companies that would do that in the first place, but MS would be the last company to do it.

>If Microsoft adapted many of the good technologies ..

What if they just bought every software company, and released a product that incorperated all the good technologies? We'd all die, cause what you like is different than what I like, so I don't mind having a choice and choosing differently than you. The notion of a 'right' solution is BS, so ensuring that fish A doesn't nibble on every other fish in the pond is critical to maintaining consumer confidence and a healthy economic ecosystem (nevermind encouraging competition and innovation). It'd be a very incestuous market with not much new to show for itself very often ...

Re:'crush' OpenGL

[SirSlud]

It'd be a very incestuous market with not much new to show for itself very often ...

... which is to say that the MS in that scenario would never invent anything, and that all the other fish would want to stop living, cause everytime they had a new idea, it'd just be bought from them and bastardized for the masses. People don't do stuff just for money; people want to see their innovative babies through to customer satisfaction. If ideas keep getting snatched up and implemented by the guy who likes to ejaculate his products prematurely on the market, it ruins it for everyone. This is why I don't support the scenario you described as a particularly healthy one in the long term.

Re:'crush' OpenGL

[Zeinfeld]

It doesn't matter who "governs" OpenGL. All Microsoft has to do to kill it now is refuse to license their 3D patents to any hardware vendor who chooses to make OpenGL drivers instead of DirectX.

Microsoft does not have a history of using software patents to block rivals. Unlike Apple for example who used a copyright theory to block other companies attempts to use the Xerox-Parc GUI interface. Apple failed to intimidate Microsoft, but they broke Atari whose GEM O/S had a far better user interface as well as multi-tasking.

Using blocking patents is not a logical strategy for Microsoft. In the first place it might well involve an anti-trust violation, particularly now that the courts have rulled that Microsoft is a monopoly. Most companies can refuse to grant patent licenses on whatever grounds they like, monopolies are considerably more restricted. The main strategic reason not to use patents as blocking tactics is that there is little point when you have 95% of a market.

The only patent I can think of offhand that MSFT uses in a blocking fashion is the Kerberos extension patent. They make sure that people know that the technology is patented however.

I can see Microsoft using the patents in several ways. One would be simply to stop someone else buying them and launching a suit. Patent suits are cheap to file and expensive to defend. Another reason is simply to have ammo to fire back if they were sued by a competitor.

Probably the best reason for Microsoft to buy the patents however is simply for advertising, to project itself as a market leader in the 3D space as the successor to SGI. Another reason might be to enhance future XBOX versions (although chances are that Microsoft Sony and Nintendo will come to some reciprocal licensing deal).

Incidentally if SGI is selling the patent portfolio I doubt that a sale of their other assets can be far behind. It is pretty much their crown jewels.

The restrictions that MSFT might well make on open source use of technology they own the patents to would be requiring reciprocal licenses and prohibiting what they call viral licenses. The reciprocal license issue is necessary simply to maintain the 'defensive' aspect of the patent. RMS will get real tweaked about prohibiting viral licenses, but so what?

Disagree with The Register

[Marx_Mrvelous]

I don't think that MS owning these patents will really help microsoft "crush" OpenGL. They're doing that already with DirectX.

I have to admit, the one thing MS does very well is a fast development cycle. DirectX is a very mature, feature-rich 3d API. Everyone supports it already. The only way OpenGL can compete is to attain strong developers, maintain a good ease-of-programming and give game deisgners and card venders a solid reason to support it.

Re:Disagree with The Register

[scott1853]

Whoa big fella.

"Fast development cycle"

You do realize that equates to "we don't need QA", also "don't bother implementing the last 500 features on that list", and don't forget "don't waste time writing good documentation".

Does SGI even own OpenGL??

[lukegalea1234]

Does SGI even own OpenGL??
It's an open standard.. isn't that what the OPEN stands for?

Re:Does SGI even own OpenGL??

[homer_ca]

No, but they own patents to many features of the OpenGL standard. Just like how Frauenhofer owns many patents on MPEG audio.

Not Just Paranoia

[MasterBlaster]

The last paragraph sums it up:

Microsoft isn't in the PC hardware business, and it's unlikely that the patents will change its technical strategy. But they do add significantly to its bargaining position with hardware vendors, giving Redmond important new leverage. Rival APIs, principally OpenGL, are kept alive through the support of graphics hardware vendors. And for a hardware partner, avoiding a lawsuit, or gaining a contract to work on future versions of Xbox, may well outweigh the advantages from continuing to support OpenGL.

I guess Microsoft trying to crush open source isn't just paranoia after all.

Re:John Carmack on Direct 3D

[Matey-O]

Dude, John's .plan was dated 199_6_!

Re:More than gaming to graphics

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

> The only way OpenGL can compete is to attain
> strong developers, maintain a good ease-of-
> programming and give game deisgners and card
> venders a solid reason to support it.
OpenGL aint just about the games man. If your developing a visualisation system of oil field sensor data, do you think you really use DirectX?

Nope, you go to the real guns, SGI.

Microsoft have a huge way to go before they grab that share of the market. For one thing, there is a whole heap of legacy apps in these scientific visualisation areas that rely on OpenGL backwards compatibility.

Mr Thinly Sliced

The Reg, do we really Trust it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the Reg's info seems biased and hear-say, we don't know the terms of the deal, shouldn't we find out BEFORE jumping to conclusions???

Re:What are the implications?

[SirSlud]

The XBox runs on Direct X, OpenGL's direct competition and nemesis. I mean, we've gotten to the point where even MS can go around saying, "Yeah, we did this so we can kick some ass and make some money for our stock holders.", which is true, legal, and widely accepted.

I don't think sinister is the word - it's standard operating procedure for MS, along with lots of other large corperations. The Real beauty of it is that MS also has an alibi - they kept SGI in business (maybe), thus ensuring they still have competitors. MS is to the market now what the US is to the world - they are taking things over via a dependance on existance. That is to say, they can keep companies alive and in buiness as a kind of bribe. This is so they cannot be accussed of being so successfully [anti-competative/innovative] (take your pick, doesn't matter for the sake of argument) as to have killed off all of their competitors!

Did MS purchase a license, or the patents?

[Greg Lindahl]

There's nothing in the Register article that gives any proof that MS purchased anything other than a license for the patents, not the patents themselves.

So, as is often the case, this is probably much ado about nothing.

Re:Did MS purchase a license, or the patents?

[Greg Lindahl]

There's nothing in the Register article that gives any evidence that SGI "transferred" the patents to Microsoft. The Register is not a credible source, and engages in fuzzy reporting at best.

Re:OpenGL 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Well directx is not just about the "graphics" side of the app/game, most app/games really like OpenGL, mainly because it is more mature, featureful, widely used by undergrads, etc etc....(there's a lot of reasons - and yeah Carmack does explain it best).

DirectX is a great product, the three who initiated it on contract for M$ were virtually spat out soon after its beginnings (they were not Microserfs)....some more bitter than others, however, OpenGL is considered to be better than Direct3D in a lot of ways, only recently has Direct3D begun to get some very nice techniques in the API that OpenGL has not, and thus, there is a call for OpenGL 2.0, and this M$ patent stuff wont stop that. The call is out for all types of new cool manipulations that might be needed in the future for cool eye candy. Hop to it imagineers!! :)