Caligari Dies

[Pyromania]

Caligari Corporation and their 3D animation program are now dead thanks to Microsoft. Caligari 3D was a very popular 3D animation program on the Amiga then was ported to Windows. Microsoft bought the company last year and killed it off this year! Sad news for an old time Amiga developer.

http://aladdin4d.blogspot.com/2009/0...pace-dies.html

[skateblind]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Caligari Corporation and their 3D animation program are now dead thanks to Microsoft. Caligari 3D was a very popular 3D animation program on the Amiga then was ported to Windows. Microsoft bought the company last year and killed it off this year! Sad news for an old time Amiga developer.

http://aladdin4d.blogspot.com/2009/0...pace-dies.html

Here is the actual news.
http://www.caligari.com/News/news_20...heFounder.html

[Pyromania]

Yup, anyone that wants it better D/L faast, website will be going offline very soon!

[kriz]

Argh Microsucks But its a free download now, have to try it

[Pyromania]

Get it before the website goes down.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Caligari Corporation and their 3D animation program are now dead thanks to Microsoft

Correction: "Caligari Corporation sold out to Microsoft for a greater monetary profit than that potentially held by the presumably low sales of their products, and this is the result"

Damnit people, stop scapegoating everything sad on Microsoft

[Pyromania]

FYI

Further info via a plug-in developer for trueSpace.


" Microsoft has discontinued trueSpace and terminated all the Caligari staff except for Roman. There likely won't be any future updates other than what the plugin and user community make for themselves. 7.61 is most likely the last trueSpace release."
__________________

[antonvaltaz]

If Microsoft aren't going to do anything with it, I wonder if they'll consider releasing the source code? Maybe it could have another lease of life as Open Source?

[Maren]

Originally Posted by antonvaltaz

If Microsoft aren't going to do anything with it

But they are

[Pyromania]

@Maren

That news is old, everything changed in May 2009 when all the staff was let go except for Roman. What is going on now is up in the air.

[Unknown_K]

I was mad when Microsoft killed the original www.zone.com where I played Age of Empires II online and they killed www.Ensemblestudios.com that created the whole Age of Empires lineup.

It is business, unless you get a specific return on investment then the product will get dumped. It would be nice if the large companies that purchased smaller ones and having a change a heart would resell the IP to a smaller entity instead of just boarding the place up. Plenty of great products fade away because of consolidation in the software industry. How many different word processors did we used to have and how many are there now?

[Maren]

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

How many different word processors did we used to have and how many are there now?

Now? more than you can shake a stick at.

[Unknown_K]

Originally Posted by Maren

Now? more than you can shake a stick at.

I was refering to the PC not Amiga, and there used to be many popular word processors but mostly we are stuck with MS word these days. There are others but not many are used much.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

I was refering to the PC not Amiga, and there used to be many popular word processors but mostly we are stuck with MS word these days. There are others but not many are used much.

I too am referring to the PC. There's a gazillion word processors for the PC, it's just that most people choose to use the general-purpose best MS Word out of convenience, but preference has nothing to do with variety or availability.

[tone007]

Microsoft knows what's best, just sit back and let them handle it.

[Mick_AKA]

Gutted, I've been a trueSpace user since day one.

[Anakirob]

It is business, unless you get a specific return on investment then the product will get dumped.

No, it's business to buy an undervalued company dismantle its structure (fire everyone) and sell its assets for a profit. With no intention of ever trading a product for a 'specific return'.

The purchaser will usually make some 'promising noises' regarding the future of the product/company. Of course they do, they want the value of that companies assets to be relatively strong when they start liquidating.

The product(s) in question were never going to be developed/distributed by the new owner. No matter what Microsoft may have said.

You don't have to look hard to see that Microsoft (and others)have done this many times.

1-Purchase Company
2-Press Conference - big plans for the future
3-Liquidate Company
4-Profit

Sound similar to what Gateway did to Amiga?

If Microsoft aren't going to do anything with it, I wonder if they'll consider releasing the source code?

Every piece of intellectual property Microsoft owns, are considered to be assets. So Microsoft are planning on adding Caligari to their portfolio of intellectual property, and using it to increase their total worth. So they would not be interested in letting you (or anyone else) have it unless you could offer them more $$ than it would realistically add to their worth over the next (say) twenty years.