Combined, they represent more than twenty years of experience in 3D motion control technology. In addition, their 3D input devices are currently de facto industry standards in the CAD/CAM sphere.
Logitech has held a 49 percent share of LogiCAD 3D since 1998 and recently acquired majority control of the company. LogiCAD 3D’s signature product, the Magellan controller, is widely used in fields such as automotive design and the aerospace industry. In fact, the original Magellan product was used in a NASA project, where it controlled a robot in space. Labtec’s 3D peripheral business became part of Logitech with the company’s acquisition of Labtec earlier this year. Since its introduction, the Labtec 3D controller (Spaceball) has found strong support among leading 3D application vendors and major workstation OEMs worldwide. Like Magellan, the Spaceball also has a history in space, having been used to remotely drive the Sojourner robot on Mars.
3Dconnexion unites the two entities’ market strengths, engineering resources and global presence in a new level of synergy that promises to bring innovative new technology and applications to market. 3Dconnexion will be headquartered in Silicon Valley, with facilities in Germany, Oregon and California, and sales offices in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Customers view the creation of 3Dconnexion as a positive move for the industry. According to Stephen A. Kamensky, IBM Senior Product Development Manager for 3D Graphics, The union of Labtec and Logicad3D into a new company greatly expands our actual and potential customer base and enables us to fully embrace the use of a 3D motion controller in the solutions we offer. 3Dconnexion represents a new level of commitment to this growing market.
Logitech’s choice to establish 3Dconnexion underscores our commitment to 3D input device technology. 3D motion control promises to be an increasingly important aspect of the human-to-computer interface, said Guerrino De Luca, Logitech’s president and chief executive officer. By uniting two industry leaders with their combined technical know-how and vertical channel reach we have the opportunity to extend the 3D graphical user interface beyond the specialist community to a wider base of applications and users. Our enthusiasm for 3Dconnexion reflects our broader commitment to enriching the interface between people and digital information.
Wolfgang Hausen, who has served as senior vice president and general manager of the Logitech Control Devices Business Unit since 1997, has been named president and chief executive officer of 3Dconnexion. Mr. Hausen commented, We believe in the future of 3D as a widely adopted graphical user interface – and the time to lay the groundwork for this expansion is now. With ever increasing processing power and better Internet bandwidth to foster collaborative projects, we are poised to build on our successful penetration of the CAD market. We’re seeing this technology assume greater importance in professional graphics and animation, as well as in the creation of digital content for the Web, to name but a few areas. This makes for a tremendous growth opportunity for 3Dconnexion and for Logitech.
SOURCE: COMPANY PRESS RELEASE