Privately Held Corporation
Xi Graphics, Inc. is a privately held company, founded in 1994, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, and incorporated in Delaware.
Software Development Firm
Xi Graphics, Inc. specializes in creating its own Accelerated -X™ brand of a high-performance, premium-quality implementations of the X Window System specifications, for use primarily on UNIX kernels on a variety of computer system platforms using graphics hardware made by various graphics chip/card manufacturers.
Accelerated-X products have been in use since 1995 by individuals, corporations, universities and government agencies worldwide in countless applications, and have set the standard for quality, stability, performance, and exceedingly low maintenance requirements.
Cooperation of Graphics Manufacturers
Xi Graphics, Inc. requires the confidential register-level information from the graphics chip/card manufacturers (under NDA) in order to develop graphics drivers that are capable of obtaining the maximum acceleration available from the graphics hardware. Other than this detailed information on the hardware, no engineering support from the graphics chip maker is required, i.e., there is no "burden" other than good and complete documentation from the chip maker.
Xi Graphics' Drivers Mate to Xi Graphics' X Servers
In X, the X server is between the OS kernel and the graphics driver. Each Accelerated-X graphics driver mates only to an Accelerated-X server, and each Accelerated-X server can operate only with an Accelerated-X graphics driver. As a matter of policy, Xi Graphics does not develop graphics drivers to mate with XFree86, Xorg, or any other Open Source X servers.
"X" is An Industry Standard
The X Window System ("X") is an industry standard graphics sub-system for UNIX operating systems. The last formal specifications - complete with Sample Implementation and a test suite - were published as X11R6.5. Since then, Xorg has released many, many partially implemented X servers incorporating various "ideas", but such releases should not be considered formal specifications nor releases, and certainly do not constitute an "industry standard".
Accelerated-X products are compliant with the X11R6.4 release of X and also include some additional extensions. They are designed to work with open source Linux kernels and proprietary UNIX kernels. Recently - 2008 - VxWorks kernels were added to the mix.
SW Products Are Licensed
The Company licenses its proprietary products to individuals, corporations, government agencies and universities on a retail and OEM basis. The bulk, if not all, of the cost of developing Accelerated-X products for an initial platform and kernel are borne by Xi Graphics.
Subsequent ports to other kernels and platforms may incur a development charge to the customer, (generallf for expediting the development) the size of which will vary with the commercial prospects of such ported products in the general market.
In general, Xi Graphics depends upon licensing fees on a per system basis for most of its income, and takes a long term view, depending upon return customers over the years for a large part of its revenue stream. Included in the license fees is free maintenance for at least a year from license purchase (some restrictions apply, obviously).
Providing free support to our customers requires that Xi Graphics' SW is easy to install, is very good when initially shipped, and does not require much, if any follow-on maintenance. This policy has been followed for the life of the Company, and is one of the major factors in the quality of its SW, as well as the satisfaction of its customers
