Towards the end of last year, Sun Microsystems Inc decided that growth at the high end of the graphics and visualisation market didn’t warrant its continued investment. So it handed over its Intel Corp 80860 RISC-based VX and MVX visualisation accelerators over to Fremont, California-based Vicom Systems Inc, which began to market the things exclusively on Sun workstations from the beginning of this year (CI No 1,794). The market, it seems, has proven too small even for Vicom, and that firm has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Vicom says it incurred massive debt during the development its own proprietary visualisation line while at the same time taking over Sun’s products, and couldn’t attract the new development capital it required. Vicom – a prominent partner in Sun’s Open Graphics Initiative – and Sun, both expect the move to result in an improved focus on the VX and MVX lines as Vicom de-emphasises its proprietary line.
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