[Openicc] X-Rite to aquire GreytagMacbeth

[Hal V. Engel]

On Wednesday 01 February 2006 03:00 pm, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> KCMS provides a full
> (if perhaps dated) CMS so X-Rite software is not required.  Most
> likely X-Rite provides protocol specifications under NDA.

The Sun web site lists the vendor as X-Rite and the product as DTP70 as 
supported on Solaris for x86 machines.  Probably the only reason this exists 
is because of the KCMS stuff on Solaris but it appears that X-Rite is the 
driver supplier.

>
> > I think we already have an example in the video driver area that could
> > show the way for this market segment.  Video drivers if anything are much
> > more
>
> Yes.  But it is important to notice that video card vendors make most
> of their profit from selling hardware while spectrophotometer vendors
> make most of their profit from selling software and specialized
> services.  This is easy to see based on how much the price of offered
> packages varies based on software features.  We would need to offer
> the ability to make money primarily based on selling hardware since it
> is likely that profile generation support would be based on open
> source software.

To a certain extent this is true but both X-Rite and GMB have (had) OEM 
programs for their hardware.  For GMB this appears to be only to OEM hardware 
for Windows and Mac software vendors even if they appear to have been 
considering Linux.  For X-Rite I don't know how broad their OEM activities 
might be platform wise but Unix is listed on their OEM form.  The vendors 
with the OEM deals were competing directly with GMB on the software side and 
at least in some cases this is true for X-Rite.   So it appears just selling 
the hardware is profitable.  And as things now stand they are not selling any 
products or services to the market segment we are talking about.  If they can 
make money selling OEM hardware to software vendors that they compete against 
how come they can't make money selling the same hardware to a non-competitor?   
Seems like a no-brainer to me.

>
> > Bob's idea of banding together in a visible way sounds good but how can
> > we be more visable?  We have members of the ICC who are on this list and
> > I would suspect that at least some of the vendors in this area have some
> > awareness of it's existence.  What else can we do?   I think that this is
> > what we should be talking about.
>
> Members of ICC may not represent much money.  If companies like
> Disney, Autodesk, DreamWorks, Industrial Light & Magic, Sony and other
> companies already using Linux for serious work (see
> http://linuxmovies.movieeditor.com/studios.html for a partial listing
> of film studios) can identify themselves as interested Linux
> customers, then it is more clear that there is a viable market.
> These companies represent thousands of screens to be calibrated.

Good point.  I had not thought about using companies like this to gain 
leverage.  I was contacted about 4 months ago by a CGI company in Hong Kong 
that wanted to be able to "calibrate" the displays of their Linux 
workstations.  Smaller than the companies you listed but another example.  I 
told them that I intended to do additional work in this area to add 
instrument support but that I needed to find a vendor to supply the devices.   
I have been ready to start that work for several months now but have been 
unable to find a vendor.  They are waiting for me at this point and I suspect 
that if I got back to them and asked them to contact a vendor that they would 
do it.  Anyone here have contacts with any of the companies that Bob listed?

Hal