Immersion's main competitors are other companies that provide similar services and products such as, Logitech (LOGI) and Interlink electronics (LINK). They received their cash from a "business agreement" with Sony. They had been suing sony for using their technology. They won this and got over 100 million dollars. Though they had also been suing Microsoft who bought a piece of their company and gave them 26.5 million and asked for a chunk of the settlement with Sony. Immersion had really no choice but to accept this with Microsoft as they had very little cash themselves and might be unable to pay the legal expenses. Microsoft does not own a piece of the company now because they sold it a long time ago. After they had won the case with Sony, Microsoft sued Immersion because Immersion refused to pay them and said that it was not a settlement with Sony it was a business agreement and it had been settled out of court. As you can see Microsoft messed up Immersion when they should be the ones messed up because they stole Immersion's technology and took advantage of them because of how small of a company they were. As to your other question, I have no idea. I hope that this was helpful and think that immersion will continue to experience tremendous growth through 2007!!
