[Openicc] X-Rite to aquire GreytagMacbeth

[Hal V. Engel]

On Wednesday 01 February 2006 03:57 am, Graeme Gill wrote:
> Jan-Peter Homann wrote:
> > So for monitor-profiling, we should look may better at the
> > colorvision-instruments:
>
> Any particular reason ? From the web sites, there's no indication
> that interface information is available for these instruments.
>
> The "ColorVision PrintFIX" is certainly not comparable to
> a spectrometer (As I understand it, it's a modified RGB scanner.)
>
> Experience in the past (as well as fundamental technical issues)
> also don't paint LED based spectrometers in a good light either
> (Of course they tend to be more affordable instruments.)
>
> The Datacolor products appear to be spot reading only, not
> suitable for reading thousands of patches in a chart.
>
> It's hard to know where the Avantes AvaMouse (aka SpectroCam)
> stands. It had a reputation of being a little temperamental
> in the past, and the Xenon light source seems to be of mixed benefit.
> There doesn't seem to be anything comparable to the i0 on offer
> to work with it, and little sign of new product development.
>
> A lot of these instruments can be very useful, but generally
> seem to be "second tier" compared to Xrite and GMB.
>
> Graeme Gill.


I have been in contact with a number of these companies over the past 7 
months.  

For a time Avantes had a "Linux SDK" for the AvaMouse/SpectroCam.  But this is 
no longer available and the version I have is x86 only.   So it is of little 
use in the real world.  The license included in the tarball is GPL but the 
actual driver source code was not included.   On their web site now is 
something called the avaspec linux driver.  This is source code only but the 
licensing information in the tarball is very poorly done as parts of it 
appear to be open source with a GPL license and other parts the license is 
not stated and there is no licensing information in the high level 
directories of the tarball.   I am also not sure if this will work for the 
AvaMouse/SpectroCam.  In addition, I have not been able to get it to build on 
my system since it uses and odd ball build system that I can't get to work 
and appears to have been designed for building Java systems.

A few months ago I started talks with GMB and for a while they seemed 
interested then about mid December they stopped communicating with me.  I now 
suspect that this is because of the merger.   In the mean time I found out 
that GMB does have Linux drivers for the i1 (it supports both the i1 Pro and 
Display).   My last communication with them was to request a copy of this.  I 
was told by my contact that he would look into it and at that point they 
stopped communicating.

I am in talks right now with X-Rite.  At this point I have no indications of 
how receptive they are but they have not told me to go away and the form that 
I filled out for them did list Unix as a platform and I checked other and 
then wrote in POSIX as my platform.   So I don't know if it will go anywhere 
but this is in the very early stages.

I have in the last few days approached ColorVision as well but I don't know if 
or how they will respond.  I also agree with Graeme that these devices are of 
lower quality than are the X-Rite and GMB devices.  But if they are willing 
to work with OSS projects then I will work with them as this may be all that 
we will have available.

At this point I am not particularly optimistic.  The Avantes device is a 
reflection only device for those of us in the US because of patents held by 
GMB.  The AvaMouse/SpectroCam is of limited usefullness even if drivers 
existed because of this.  In addition Avantes is a tiny company with less 
than 30 employees.   GMB as a separate entity will not exist in a few months 
and X-Rite will have an effective monoply.   I think we should all keep our 
fingers crossed that X-Rite is open to working with the OSS community.  

Having worked for a company that went through several mergers while I was 
there I know that both X-Rite and GMB are in a state of turmoil right now (at 
least internally).  The information about the merger on the X-Rite site says 
that they expect to reduce combined operating expenses by $25 million per 
year ($20 million in the second year).  From my experience that means that 
they will be closing some facilities and laying off 100 to 150 people, 
possibly more (10% to 20% of their work force).   Neither of these companies 
are very large and the information I have on GMB is that they have 340 
employees world wide.  Right now there is a high level of uncertainty for 
those employed at both companies.  This is particularly true for those with 
middle management positions since you can basically count on almost half of 
them not having jobs with the merged company in a year.  Unfortunately these 
are the folks that we need to work with and they will likely be very 
reluctant to do anything that might involve even the perception of risk.

Sorry for the gloomy forcast.  I wish the situation were different.

Hal