You say you want a revolution? Well, sometimes the smallest things can create the biggest changes. OpenGL ES originated that way—in a modest 3Dlabs project in 2001 that sought to define a standardized subset of OpenGL for a range of embedded systems. It soon became clear that there was a widespread industry desire for a small footprint, cross platform API with excellent 2D and 3D functionality, particularly as 3D silicon was rapidly becoming both more capable and significantly cheaper, but such an API simply didn’t exist in 2001.

As interest quickly grew around 3Dlabs’ idea, the search began for a standards body able to create a 3D graphics API for embedded systems that leveraged the proven strengths of OpenGL—an API that has been used by a huge range of applications from games to CAD systems on a wide variety of workstations and PCs. With the support of the OpenGL Architecture Board, the industry body responsible for evolving OpenGL for 10 years, 3Dlabs took the idea of defining a subset of OpenGL to the Khronos Group—an open standards consortium working on OpenGL-related standards. Khronos recognized the opportunity and began to organize to undertake this new project.

Then things started getting really interesting.

At that time, the cell phone industry was also searching for a graphics API to enable the market for 3D gaming on handsets. An early indication of how fast things were about to start developing occurred when Symbian arranged an industry-wide meeting in April 2002, and in a single day, the decision was made to adopt the embryonic OpenGL ES as that standard.