Javier Castellar (javier++at++sixty.asd.sgi.com)
Fri, 26 Apr 1996 22:46:35 -0700
On Apr 16, 9:45am, carter++at++eai.com wrote:
> Subject: OpenPerformer & Vis/Sim outside SGI
> 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?
In my opinion the HP, IBM and Sun offers still miles away from the SGI high end
offer (both HW = iR/RE2 and SW = Performer 2.1).
Only in the medium end and mainly in the low end systems is in which we should
consider competition but mainly in the HW, not in SW (HW=Impact/Extreme and SW
= Performer 2.0).
>
> 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. :-)
We provide a medium term, we let people to use Performer (our way) or use
OpenGL (do it all your self).
Maybe we have not OpenPerformer but we have an outstanding feature that other
vendors cannot offer: a single API regardless the level of your simulator (it
works from Indy to iR). A simulator that begings with an Indy can became a iR
level simulator.
>
> 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.
Our initial aproach is to move into an OpenDatabase aproach to VisSim. Other
vendors (mainly on the high end) use to rely on "closed" databases to trap his
clients. The SGI's aproach of being open in terms in the databases support (to
be as much as indenpent as possible from the database format)
>
> Both have the strategic advantage of being MUCH larger organizations
> than SGI.
First off SGI is not what a call an small company.
Second i would like to know how much money they spend R&D for Hi-end graphics .
I think that SGI is the most focused in hi-end graphics and in fact we devote
more resources to graphics that E&S, HP ... etc.
> 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.
I agree, but we have to go step by step ... and i prefer the first step to be
perfomance + features rather that to be Open as the first priority.
>
>-- End of excerpt from carter++at++eai.com
-- ************************************************************************* * Javier Castellar Arribas * Email: javier++at++asd.sgi.com * * * Vmail: 3-1589 * * Member of Technical Staff * Phone: (415)-933-1589 | 933-2108 (lab) * * Applied Engineering * Fax: (415)-964-8671 * * Advanced Systems Division * MailStop: 8L-800 * ************************************************************************* * Silicon Graphics Inc. * * 2011 N. Shoreline Boulevard, * * Mountain View, California 94043-1386, USA * ************************************************************************* "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetant" Hari Seldon
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