Gamers need it. Scientists need it. But the question 3dfx Interactive Inc. (OTC BB:IACTU - news) wants to know is, do businesses need it?

The maker of graphics chips and boards on Monday became the latest company to quest for the Holy Grail of the 3-D graphics market: the business user. The San Jose, Calif. company -- best known for its Voodoo 3-D technology for games -- announced its new Velocity line of 3-D boards for business based around its latest Voodoo3 chip.

With market researcher Dataquest Inc. estimating that more than three-quarters of personal computers serve businesses, 3-D graphics chip companies are slavering to find a way to expand onto the corporate desktop. So far, they've all failed.

Aiming at the majority Jon Peddie, principal analyst and president of graphics technology watcher Jon Peddie Associates, classified the move as a necessary step in approaching the business market.

"Basically, it's just rebranding to make the products more attractive and acceptable (to businesses)," he said. "(3dfx's current) problem is that the (information technology) manager, the people that approve these things, are not going to buy a game board."

Instead, 3dfx (Nasdaq:TFDX - news) intends to deliver a product that, rather than being at the cutting edge, is a stable solution -- and has no mention of gaming on the box. At the low end, the $69 Velocity 100 has 8MB of memory and supports AGP 2X. At the higher end, the Velocity 200, not yet priced, will have 16MB of fast memory.

The killer app?
But do business users really need 3-D?3dfx thinks so. The company hopes to convince corporate buyers and business PC makers that having the best 3-D technology makes a difference for business users.

"Certainly, the long-term vision is a 3-D desktop to organize and visualize more information than you can on today's 2-D desktop," said Michael Howse, senior vice president of marketing for 3dfx. "Our hope and goal through our Velocity program is to encourage (developers) to create those technologies as well as innovative Web sites."

Howse knows the difficulty of pitching state-of-the-art 3-D technology to business execs. He directed a similar effort more than three years ago at graphics chip maker S3 Inc. (Nasdaq:SIII - news) -- a rival of 3Dfx. That program had little chance to live, being a fatality of S3's cutbacks in programs when the company got tangled in red tape.

JPA's Peddie thinks the average corporate user doesn't need 3-D; the technology is a solution without a problem. "There is no killer app," he said. "You don't need a great 3-D controller for Excel and Word. You just need good price and a stable driver."

3-D everywhere That doesn't mean that some level of 3-D acceleration is not already invading PCs on every desktop, however.

Paul Crossly, a spokesman for S3, already sees 3-D on many desktops and its deployment is picking up speed every year. He said few chips are sold today that have no 3-D capabilities, so "it's a free upgrade," he said. "Business users get it at no cost."

S3's sales attest to that fact. While the Santa Clara, Calif. company shipped about two-thirds of its chips to the business market last quarter, only 5 percent lacked 3-D functionality. "Every PC you buy today ships with some level of 3-D capability," stressed Crossly.

Aiming low...
And that's 3dfx's first big battle -- at the low-end business market.

Peter Glaskowsky, senior analyst with chip technology watcher MicroDesign Resources Inc., believes the company has prepared itself for the task.

"The system integrator business buys cheap graphics cards in large quantities (for the business market)," he said. "These cards were designed for that."