Microsoft Aquires Caligari

Microsoft acquiring smaller companies for key technologies is nothing new, but last month's purchase of the Caligari Corporation to boost the 3D capabilities of their Virtual Earth platform caught my attention.

Caligari is the developer of trueSpace, which was the first commercial 3D application that I had ever used. Introduced in 1994, trueSpace pioneered a simple and straightforward 3D user interface that helped many people like myself get started in modeling and animation.

Even though I quickly hit roadblocks with trueSpace's rendering engine and thus never upgraded after version 2, I continually kept an interest in the company. While Caligari was never able to elevate trueSpace beyond a certain niche in the industry, I give them credit for still being a player after so many other companies have vanished. Just as impressive was their ability to keep their prices affordable and consistent throughout the years.

Articles have been written on how Microsoft's acquisition will benefit Virtual Earth but I'm more concerned on how it'll affect the future development of trueSpace. The founder of Caligari says nothing will change but Microsoft's acquisition history shows otherwise. Microsoft purchased high-end 3D developer Softimage back in 1994 and soon ported their flagship product, Softimage|3D to the NT platform. But they concurrently canceled future development of the IRIX version and ultimately sold off the technology and brand to Avid just four years later.