A Speedy Tiler: Kyro II on Hercules' 3D Prophet 4500

NVIDIA's Market Muscle: Competitors Under Pressure

There are already four boards furnished with the Kyro I: Innovision Inno3D KYRO II000, Videologic Vivid!, Powercolor Evil Kyro and the Hercules 3D Prophet 4000 32 MB.

As far as Kyro II is concerned we are dealing with an entirely different situation. Videologic offers the Vivid XS card, and the only other card around is the Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64 MB. However, other graphics board partners could join STMicroelectronics later on but, for stronger partners such as ASUS, Creative or Elsa, the stakes seem to be too high. No one wants to offend the 800-pound gorilla that is NVIDIA. In addition, Kyro II sales aren't targeted at the high-end aof the 3D graphics market, but rather in the value or mainstream segment of the market.

Companies that have become market leaders in a particular segment tend to react like monopolists. Intel is a good example in the CPU market. NVIDIA is in a similar position in the graphics chips arena, and exploits its dominant status. In an authentic document , the 3D giant tears competitors PowerVR and STMicroelectronics apart. In the lucrative mainstream sector, the Kyro II is a burr under NVIDIA's saddle, since it could end up challenging the GeForce2 MX.

Be that as it may, Brian Burke, NVIDIA's graphics veteran spokesman, doesn't deny the origins of the paper. "Yes, unfortunately this orginiated here at NVIDIA. As you know, the presentation that has been circulating the Internet was an tool created for the NVIDIA sales team. It was created to help position our products against competitive offerings, as well as to educate and motivate our sales staff. It was never intended for public viewing or distribution."