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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.
I believe this is just the first step in a larger attempt by Microsoft to buy the entire 3rd Dimension.
I'm really going to hate having to pay them royalties when I'm using it.
-Rothfuss
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.
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.
Remember how MS made their own Java VM and modified the language to suit themselves?
Perhaps they're aiming for MS OpenGL (MS OpenJelly, lube up and aim for penetration)
(please don't troll me)
internet like monkeys'
> 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
3. As a result, company A's product is improved.
.. 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.
..
...
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
>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
"Old man yells at systemd"
How about this one.
A log can change in 5 years, eh?
I mean, god forbid that Microsoft actually improves their products?
There's a mental image - sitting in the audience watching episode II and the screen suddenly turns bright blue in the middle of a fighter battle...
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
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?
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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
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.
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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