 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer |
| Founded | 1981; 44 years ago (1981) inRichardson, Texas |
| Founders |
|
| Defunct | May 1999; 25 years ago (1999-05) |
| Fate | Acquired by3dfx Interactive |
Number of employees | 895 (1996, peak) |
STB Systems, Inc., was an American graphics adapter card manufacturer active from 1981 to 1999. Initially a manufacturer of various expansion cards for theApple II, the company quickly leaned into the graphics accelerator market forIBM PCs andcompatibles, owing to the IBM PC's more open architecture. STBwent public in 1995 and was once the second-largest global vendor of multimedia computer products. In 1999, the company was acquired by3dfx Interactive.
STB Systems, Inc., was founded inRichardson, Texas, in 1981 by Don Balthaser, Bill Ogle, and Mark Sims.[1] Ogle, its chief founder, served as chief executive officer and chairman since the company's foundation; he previously worked forTexas Instruments as an engineer.[2] The founders eschewed raisingventure capital with the founding of STB, instead loaning $10,000 from Plano Bank & Trust as their startup capital.[3]
STB's first products were released in 1981 and comprised memory expansion boards and graphics enhancement cards for theApple II. The trio found themselves restricted byApple's apprehension towardclonemakers and heavy use of patented hardware and copyrighted software in the design and functionality of the Apple II family. Apple erstwhile had been losing market share toIBM'sPersonal Computer,clones of which had been propagating wildly after only a year on the market. Such clones could accept expansion cards marketed for the IBM PC proper, leading to a lucrative market for IBM PC peripheral vendors.[1] Recognizing this, in 1983, STB began offering products for the IBM PC, starting with the Super RIO—a multifunction board expanding the PC'sRAM by up to 384 KB as well as adding areal-time clock andparallel andserial ports—in mid-1983.[4]: 81 In late November 1983, they introduced the Graphix Plus, their first graphics accelerator board for the IBM PC.[5]
After steady growth in the 1980s, STB expanded their presence internationally in the next decade. In the early 1990s the company bought out an 80,000-square-foot factory inJuárez,Mexico, for the manufacture of their graphics cards. By the mid-1990s the factory was able to produce 200,000 cards in a single month. STB also used the factory to take contract work for other expansion card vendors needing their ownPCBs. By January 1996, STB employed roughly 815 workers: 153 in the United States, 12 in the company's three European offices (in London, Frankfurt and Paris), and about 650 in Juárez.[1]
In 1994, STB entered the growing3D acceleration graphics card market with the introduction of the Power 3D System board, making use of3Dlabs's Glint chip.[6] The card saw heavy adoption among PC gamers and engineers working withCAD/CAM software, earning the company a devoted following.[7]: 48 [3] STB meanwhile gained several computer systems manufacturers as reseller of STB's video card products, as bundled with prebuilt machines, in the mid-1990s. These vendors included IBM,Gateway 2000,Acer,Hewlett-Packard, andDell, among others.[1] In February 1995, STB filed itsinitial public offering. Its stock price fluctuated rapidly after multiple chip shortages were announced in the year, but the company's revenue grew to $129.6 million for fiscal year 1995, up from $89.8 million in 1994.[8] By 1997, the company was the second-largest dedicated vendor of multimedia computer products.[9][10]
In February 1997, the company opened up a software development house inBelfast,Northern Ireland, focusing on the development of device drivers and performance-enhancing utilities for games designed forWindows. STB planned to hire 40 workers there by 2000.[9] In April 1997, the company acquired Symmetric Simulation Systems, a manufacturer of high-end 3D accelerator cards marketed to CAD/CAM users and multimedia CD-ROM authors based inDallas, Texas, for $200,000.[11] In August 1997, the company announced the opening of a 150,000-square-foot office at Synergy Park North in theUniversity of Texas at Dallas.[12]
3dfx Interactive, a graphics chip maker, announced the acquisition of STB Systems in December 1998, in a stock swap valuated at $141 million. Previously only a maker of the graphics chips that go onto video cards, such as those STB made, 3dfx's acquisition of STB allowed the former to manufacture complete graphics cards for the first time, putting it in the difficult position of having to compete with former business partners, such asCreative Labs andDiamond Multimedia, who used 3dfx's chips in their graphics cards.[13] 3dfx's acquisition of STB was completed in the tail end of May 1999.[14]
Following the merger, conditions at 3dfx deteriorated rapidly, and the company's intellectual property was acquired by their largest competitorNvidia in 2000, 3dfx properly dissolving in 2002. Industry analysts considered their acquisition of STB a major reason behind 3dfx's decline, as it resulted in third-party manufacturers transforming from investors in the development of 3dfx's products (a significant source of revenue) into competitors; these companies in turn began purchasing from Nvidia for their 3D accelerator chips.[15]
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