Microsoft Buys 3D Animation Firm Caligari for Virtual Earth Team

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 7, 2008 - 8:34am.

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) has acquired Caligari, a developer of 3D modeling and animation software, for an undisclosed sum, according to a post on the Caligari blog from chief executive Roman Ormandy.

Founded in 1986, the company is best-known for developing the trueSpace 3D graphics and animation software.

Caligari's Ormandy and his team will become part of Microsoft's Virtual Earth division, which is building an immersive 3D Web mapping application.

"I talked to many people at Virtual Earth group and I am convinced that the technical team behind Virtual Earth has a significant, long-term commitment to the 3D Web," Ormandy wrote.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/1z7ev

http://www.caligari.com

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth

Published in DMW Daily, February 7, 2008

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Comments

Will Microsoft distribute and support trueSpace7.6 ?

Submitted by Libor Stolc (not verified) on April 10, 2008 - 6:07am.

On Sunday, 6th of April, I had to agree with a new licence agreement to continue in a downloading of new Beta version of trueSpace7.6. It is an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and me. And so next day I tried to get any contact to somebody from Microsoft office in Prague to have first talks about my next cooperation (as the distributor of Caligari product in Czech Republic) with Microsoft. After four days I did not get any email or telephone call from Microsoft office in Prague. I am very looking forward to my cooperation with Microsoft, especially to the translation of trueSpace7.6 to Czech language. In 2001 I translated trueSpace5 and this program is still very popular in Czech Republic. My Czech customers are still very interested in this old but very good program and so I hope that Microsoft allow me to continue in my support and sale of Czech version of trueSpace5 in Czech Republic. I would like to know experiences of other ditributors of Caligari products with their cooperation with local Microsoft offices.