OpenPerformer & Vis/Sim outside SGI

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carter++at++eai.com
Tue, 16 Apr 1996 09:45:38 -0600 (CDT)

   I have a couple of things to say on the subject of the Vis/Sim world
outside SGI. SGI seems to me largely responsible for developing and
driving the field of commercial visual simulation over the past five
years or so. They've done so with the excellent RE product line, and
the well thought-out Performer library. Others have been slow to catch on.

   SGI has been alone on the battlefield for so long (so to speak) that
_perhaps_ it hasn't had the opportunity to build up its own corporate
self-confidence with respect to competing with others.

   Now, the world is rapidly taking on a different hue with respect to
the market for visual simulation. No longer is SGI completely alone in
its offerings of HW and SW to this market. Now that other competent
graphics hardware is entering the mainstream market on platforms such
as HP and Sun, where does that leave SGI with respect to visual simulation
on those platforms?

Here are some possible, though perhaps extreme, postures SGI might adopt:

1. IBM-style "do it our way or do it all yourself": Performer remains a
   closed product tied to the SGI platform, and other vendor's customers
   must invent all their visual simulation applications from scratch.
   This has the advantage of minimizing "leakage" of the customer base
   away from the SGI platform, but it makes it very difficult for SGI
   to win customers away from other vendors -- they would have to
   rewrite their applications yet again for the platforms whose policy
   forced them to write it from scratch in the first place! Not to
   mention that the last time I heard the official policy from SGI (Dev
   Forum '95), it was "SGI is a hardware company, not a software company.
   We are interested in selling SGI boxes." Of course, that was before
   the acquisition of Alias and Wavefront. :-)

2. OpenGL-style: SGI takes the high road and places its hardware and support
   into direct, level, fair, head-to-head competition with HP, Sun, E&S and
   anyone else who feels that they have the "grambaugh" to tangle with the
   inventors of visual simulation, and the leaders in commercial hardware
   rendering! OpenPerformer. This has the added advantage that the sales
   force can compete to "convert" customers from other platforms to SGI.

   The market for visual simulation on platforms other than SGI is not
growing, it is *HERE* ***NOW***!!! The market is *not* standing still
waiting to see if SGI will open up performer. Both HP and Sun have
competent graphics products available NOW. You can bet that they have
announcements of excellent products on the way.

   Both have the strategic advantage of being MUCH larger organizations
than SGI. Both have the distinct tactical disadvantage that they are now
trying to break into SGI's home turf. SGI is at a critical policy
crossroads: it can finesse the entire market into playing by ITS rules
(by opening Performer), or it can leave Performer a proprietary library
and let the market decide whose rules to play by.

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