Article Info Second Hand Smoke - Renegades of the Empire Created: November 12, 1999 By: Omid Rahmat Category: Columns Summary: A new book goes behind the scenes of DirectX, and tells the story of the maverick developers who bucked the Microsoft corporate culture to make it happen.

Introduction

A new book goes behind the scenes of DirectX, and tells the story of the maverick developers who bucked the Microsoft corporate culture to make it happen.

Books about technology companies can be a tiresome read at times. They become bogged down in the details of the technology, and lost in awe at the wealth created by possessed nerds and geeks. Personality, character, and color is often missing. That's not true of a new book out from Crown Publishing, Michael Drummond's Renegades of the Empire. It's the story of three people that were intimately involved in the creation of DirectX, and subsequently moved into the realm of 3D on the Internet with Chromeffects, but it's also about Microsoft, its battles with the Justice Department, and how the company that defined competition in the information age may ultimately be undone by its own misguided aggressions.

This is a book about people you can relate to, the kind of guys that you'll come across in almost any high-tech firm, not just Microsoft. However, Mr. Drummond's main characters are larger than life, and they worked on stuff that spawned the mass market for everything from 3D graphics accelerators, to positional audio, and online gaming. I don't think anyone can underestimate how wide ranging the impact of DirectX has been. As a result, Eric Engstrom, and Alex St. John dominate the book, and anyone who has kept tabs on DirectX in the last five years will know these two gentlemen from press releases, trade shows, and in Mr. St. John's case, columns in the gaming press. Mr. Engstrom and Mr. St. John, and cohort Craig Eisler, were known as the Beastie Boys within the confines of Microsoft. Mr. Drummond also calls them The Unholy Troika. They're smart, ambitious, aggressive. It's all they need to be in the beginning. They're not the hyped up high-tech millionaires who appear on the cover of Forbes magazine, but they wanted to be rich, and they enjoyed their power. They're also the most interesting Microsoft people in print that I've seen. Okay, I have a bias against books that lionize CEOs and self-appointed gurus so, it's easy for me to get into Renegades of the Empire. This is a story that deals with people who get their hands dirty, but don't necessarily end up with a seat on the Board of Directors. It isn't a typical fairy tale business book, and having been a part of the milieu that surrounded DirectX, I know that it's got the kind of behind the scenes information I would have liked to have had three or four years ago.

By turns, Mr. Drummond's book will surprise the critics of DirectX, as much as excite its followers. It's a roller coaster ride through the early career of three guys who wanted to do something cool, who wanted to get recognized for it, and who wanted to be Microsoft captains. The Beastie Boys just made sure that come what may, Windows would be a cool game platform, but they fought their way through Microsoft, and a skeptical game developer community to get things done, and in so doing, they became renegades, rather than heroes. Whatever your own personal thoughts on DirectX, put them aside. Mr. Drummond's book is a great yarn. Take it at that. It's not a how to guide for would-be API conquerors.

Interview with Mr. Drummond