Even by the standards of the volatile web 3D industry, VRML 99 in Paderborn, Germany will be remembered as a time of dramatic change. No sooner had Platinum Technology Inc announced that it would release its VRML authoring and viewing tools as open source than the company laid off 1000 of its staff, including virtually all the VRML developers it acquired with Intervista Software and Cosmo Software in 1998. Conference organizers the Web 3D Consortium remained determinedly optimistic, characterizing the source release as VRML – reborn at Paderborn. Whether the tools and viewer will survive without Platinum’s support remains to be seen.
