While Microsoft’s CEO occupies himself with the Yahoo! bid announced to the public late last week, some folks in Redmond are busy with other (and considerably smaller) projects. In particular, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth project. And more specifically, the 3D facet of the utility.
Microsoft has announced its acquisition of Caligari Corp, a specialist in 3D modeling, in order to build a more “immersive...Web experience” for users of the Live Maps service. Roman Ormandy, the CEO of Caligari, stated in a post yesterday in his company’s online forum that his staff as well as the people tasked with building Virtual Earth since the start are committed to a vision ensures a “long-term commitment to the 3D Web.”
The reasoning for this new purchase by Microsoft is quite clear. The company expects, as it does in numerous other sectors of the Web software and services market, to confront Google and its popular Google Earth/Maps developments.
There is no hidden agenda here. This is no veiled attempt at surprise by Microsoft. It is very clearly looking to force itself to a more prominent position in the public eye as far as the delivery of premium Web services. The addition of Caligari’s 3D team to the Virtual Earth project is Microsoft’s very overt attempt to deliver its own feature-rich product to compete with Google Earth.