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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.
Besides, OpenGL is goverened by a board of companies, not just SGI.
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.
Honorables,
It has come to my attention that Microsoft has recently acquired fundamental patents for 3D graphics technology and techniques from SGI. This is a dangerous situation, as it grants Microsoft significant leverage over the independent 3D hardware manufacturers who are currently supporting the only rival to Microsoft's Direct3D graphics API, OpenGL.
Microsoft has in the past worked to delay and distract advances in 3D graphics technology, such as in the abortive "Fahrenheit" plan with SGI in the 1990s. During that period, SGI was transitioning from selling Unix-only workstations to begin selling workstations running Microsoft's Windows NT. At the same time, OpenGL was gaining on Microsoft's Direct3D in terms of features, hardware support, and developer support. If SGI wanted to sell NT boxes, SGI would have to agree to the Fahrenheit plan. The perfectly timed Fahrenheit deal slowed that advance of OpenGL by, among other things, reducing SGI's active promotion of it, and allowed Microsoft's Direct3D to gain a strong lead.
Yet OpenGL support still survived due to the interest of software developers and the support of third party 3D hardware manufacturers. This latest move by Microsoft to acquire core 3D technology patents would finish the hatchet job, granting Microsoft the power to force third party 3D hardware manufacturers to drop support for OpenGL, and ultimately stifle competition and innovation in the marketplace.
Please do not let this come to pass.
Thank you,
Jason Asbahr
Game Developer
1. Company A wants to improve their product.
1. Company A wants more profits. (real world)
2. Company A legally learns/purchases/adapts technologies from rival product.
2. Company buys rival company or company's product. They have virtually unlimited assets to do this because they are a monopoly (real world).
3. As a result, company A's product is improved.
2. Company A discontinues rival company's product. Company A's product gains total market share, even though it is inferior (real world).
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
The Real beauty of it is that MS also has an alibi - they kept SGI in business (maybe), thus ensuring they still have competitors.
You laugh, but it's true!
Remember several years back when Apple was on the ropes and MS bailed them out with $150M ?
You'll also recall that part of the deal included a provision for Apple to start distributing MS IE instead of Netscape Navigator, whose stock symbol has, umm, disappeared.
I think bailing Apple was absolutely critical for MS, since otherwise their market share would have shot up even more alarmingly close to 100% than it is already. It's easier to claim there are competitors when you have only 92% of the market compared to when you have 98% of the market:)
Taken to the extreme, it wouldn't be out of place for MS to buy or bail out a Linux based company either. I think that almost happened with Corel. My own paranoid view on that deal was that Corel developers might have been moving Wine along too quickly to suit MS and they had to throw some molasses into the machine.
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