Had an interesting converstion with Jack Berlin, president of Pegasus Imaging the company that is buying TMSSequoia (see previous post.) I’ll have a complete story on that interview in the next issue of DIR. But, briefly I wanted to note that Pegasus specializes in image compression and has JPEG, JPEG 2000, Group 4 and now JBIG2 products in this area. According to Berlin, Pegasus’ JPEG compression technology is one of the only commercially available JPEG pograms. He notes that most companies have developed JPEG compression based on free source code, which is now coming back to bite them because of the recent actions of Forgent, the company that claims to have uncovered a 10-year old patent that pertains to JPEG compression.
The bottom line that Berlin was pointing to is that nothing is free. Sony, for example, has already paid Forgent something like $15 million. Pegasus claims to indeminfy its customers – taking liability for any patent infringement issues regarding its compression tools. Berlin compared to buying insurance.
Reason I say all this is because it’s odd how businesses don’t recognize that there is no free lunch. This setiment also shows up in this interesting piece I came across in the PDFZone. Remember, you’re in business to make money and you provide valuable goods and services in order to make that money. Don’t be afraid to give other businesses their due as well and you’ll find things run much more smoothly.
Okay, off the soapbox.
Thanks.
Ralph
