Unclear to me how 95% of non-Softimage AD users are able to do their
work then using Maya or Max given the
additional requirements to ease workflow, or other limitations (eg. no
ICE), without expending considerable sums
of money and/or time. Where is the efficient market here?
On 03/23/2014 07:31 PM, Perry Harovas wrote:
Today I received a response from Carl Bass, President and CEO of Autodesk.
It was pretty much what everyone thought would happen.
He basically stated that Softimage users are 1/20th the number of
those of Maya or Max.
So, as expected, it all comes down to money.
Not that I fault them for that. I want to make that perfectly clear.
They are a public corporation, and I understand that making money
is highest on the list of priorities (even for non-publlic companies, this is
important, and not inherently "evil").
That there was no acknowledgement, especially from the highest level,
of the pain that
this inflicted upon Softimage users, I suppose, is not entirely
surprising, but thoroughly disappointing.
My father owned more than 30 restaurants in his lifetime, and the
number one edict he lived his life
and ran his businesses by was this:
The customer is the most important part of a business.
They may not always be right, they may not know the difficulty of meeting
their exact demands 100% of the time, but if they are treated with
respect, care and given every benefit
of the doubt, they will appreciate it, they will return and they may
even tell others about it.
He knew that the negatives that resulted from bad word of mouth
(especially in the pre-internet and pre-social media days),
would hurt his business financially much harder than whatever money he
might have to lose to make those customers happy.
Certainly far more importantly, he ran his business (and his family)
the same way. He taught my sister and I,
as well as his employees to do what was required to make people happy,
to be willing to admit mistakes were made,
or at least to acknowledge that someone had a bad experience, and to
make it as right as possible. This attitude moved from the top all the
way down.
My father made the customer know that HIS success, was because of
THEIR business.
That is not what Autodesk exudes (but to be fair, it never has), and
few large multi-billion dollar companies have this attitude.
Some do, and those are the companies where I will choose to spend my money now.
One of the hardest pills to swallow in all this debacle, though, is
the lying (especially by omission) regarding Softimage's
future, especially with regards to the comments Chris Vienneau made 17
months ago.
Softimage had already been planned to be relegated to few if any
updates. This is clear, and admitted
by Maurice. We should all have been told this. Making us guess, but
never knowing, and telling us that
they told us about the move to Singapore is NOT the same thing as
coming right out and telling us
that they status of Softimage had changed.
Look, assume we are stupid, tell us outright, but don't insult us and
expect us to
just think "Oh, they are right, they told us the team was being
outsourced to Singapore, we really should have known
that meant little to no real feature updates."
Is that how Autodesk treats their shareholders, by giving them some
information, but letting them guess the
real intent on their own? I hope not. Makes me really happy to not be
an Autodesk shareholder.
Well, while I appreciate a response from Mr. Bass (if indeed it
actually was written by him), it just proves that
the treatment of a company's customers starts from the top and works
its way down the latter.
By this letter, and certainly by the way everything was handled within
Autodesk during this EOL, I would say we are the lowest rungs on that
latter.
I am OK with that now. At least I know, and happily jump off the
latter, to make room for anyone who wants to climb on.
Be my guest, but watch your back, because Autodesk certainly isn't going to.
-- Forwarded message --
From: Carl Bass
Date: Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 6:21 PM
Subject: RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
To: Perry Harovas
Cc: Chris Bradshaw
Dear Mr. Harovas,
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on the Softimage
retirement and I appreciate that you have choices. Our decision to
retire Softimage was not taken lightly. We recognize that there are
loyal Softimage users doing award winning work, but the fact is there
are just not enough Softimage users to justify continuing support
beyond the next two years. Today there are many times more users of
Maya and 3ds Max creating award winning work in new and innovative
ways. Our focus is to accelerate new capabilities in Maya and 3ds
Max, including incorporating capabilities that many admire in
Softimage, and brand new features that are critical to media and
entertainment artists' success today and tomorrow.
When these products were originally conceived, most everything was
done on the workstation
