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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

They probably can't extinguish Blender any more than Oracle could extinguish MySQL (Larry must have been really mad for that), but I remember what happened when they acquired and ported Softimage to NT. It worked for a couple releases, then it was abandoned, after killing killing SGI by validating NT as a 3D animation OS. The Softimage acquisition, as a business, made little sense to Microsoft - it was a low volume high margin business, completely opposite to what MS does.

SGI made plenty of suicidal moves by itself, but I remember the Softimage thing was a big blow.

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Microsoft acquiring Softimage made perfect sense at the time, Microsoft was wanting to push NT into the CG/VFX market, but because of the risk around companies producing for a platform that noone uses, someone had to throw the capital at it, and so Microsoft did.

Softimage|3D survived for a while after Microsoft sold it off, its eventual obsolescence seemed to came about from the drive to more extensible platforms, hence the new platform Softimage|XSI put out to compete with Maya.

Its also somewhat perfect irony that the company known for its Windows NT based 3D animation software (3DS MAX), Autodesk, would eventually end up owning the products which brought the big players over to that platform.

SGI also helped contribute to IRIX's obsolescence by producing NT based systems for this new Softimage|3D on NT move.

> Microsoft was wanting to push NT into the CG/VFX market

That's what I meant. In isolation, the business meant no sense. It was a PR move to validate NT as a graphics platform. With that goal accomplished, I got the impression the product languished without significant development.

> SGI also helped contribute to IRIX's obsolescence by producing NT based systems for this new Softimage|3D on NT move.

Indeed. Microsoft assisted SGI in its suicide.

MSFT isnt trying to do that, just read the blender article, the link provided says what MSFT uses it for. And I think Blender stands a chance to gain some good AI assisted toolset if that is what they use blender for.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/0...

I always thought Microsoft did this in order to make inroads into the high-end graphics market, which they did.

That was why they bought Softimage (the then leading 3D animation tool) back in the 90's. Today Microsoft has ample presence in high end graphics.

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