Sebastian, It may be easier to talk because I think a lot is getting lost in translation here...
We acquired Softimage for many reasons including a talented engineering team and the fact that they had great expertise creating IP like ICE that we wanted to leverage for projects like skyline Open sourcing software would mean removing all parts of the IP that were licensed from third parties as well as Autodesk IP that we do not want to make public. This would require a lot of resources to do. And then we would have to fix it because with all that code missing it would not compile, and even if it did, it would not be the Softimage you know today. So open source is not really a serious proposal. It seems a great idea but it is completely impractical. Similarly selling it is not an option for similar reasons. It is factually inaccurate to state that we do no development and just buy things. We do a lot. We have large teams of engineers and we invest significant amounts of money paying their salaries - you just need to visit our facilities to see that. The bulk of our code is developed internally from scratch. OpenSubdiv, Alembic, Open EXR are not acquired code - they are open-sourced standards that the industry is adopting that we support. It seems clear that you feel that those standards are of little use but I know that most of the industry wants us to support them. Customers are specifically asking us to embrace those standards and to NOT cook up proprietary formats of our own. And it is not simple to adapt your products to support new standards. It requires investment and work. Bifrost is in-house tech. Yes the Naiad team contributed their expertise but it was built from the ground up by Autodesk. Building a new DCC app from the ground up in the traditional way is really not a realistic expectation. It nearly killed both Alias and Softimage. We could take that risk if we were a start-up with no customers but we have hundreds of thousands. And they need their current products to move forward not to stop for the next 7 years while we try to do this. The bifrost approach is a far more effective one. Build new components that integrate into the core of our applications - as is vieeport 2.0 , the work we have done on the 3ds max viewport and other capabilities we are currently working on maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:23 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why MAX is not option for me. "It is incorrect to think that Autodesk is only interested in acquiring technology": Did you consider the viability of selling Softimage? "There's too much tied into the software for us to do that safely. We've looked at open-sourcing, not just Softimage but other applications, but it's not trivial to do these things. There's code bases, third party IP, we have to go through all of it to understand where all the IP came from." "We wouldn't sell the software. We paid to acquire the IP" " Taking proven technology and productizing it, whether as individual products, (like the Foundry) or as features (like Autodesk) is not really a bad thing a-priori..." Yadadad... This is basically you going back on your previous statement, after realising the obvious fallacy, i get it. Hard In house developing VS levering capital to buy Third party/free party tech, and display them as new features is one thing But you will have a hard time selling the latter as innovation when your line up for 2015 is comprised of pre existing solutions dating back to 2008. Personally i think it is a good thing that ingenious third party plugs find their way into an app, but only when they are well integrated. and i don't particularly like seeing something as trivial as a chamfer modifier elevated and flaunted as a flagship feature, i completely understand the reactions of the Max community. " Yes, I guess I can start look for an alternative (even though that won't be easy) and that's not because with Max 2013 I'm not productive (even if I've to do several back and forth with C4D), but because at this point I don't believe AD will ever add any substantial new features to Max. Considering recent Softimage users experience, I just wanna stay away from a company like this." This is you, this is how you are seen, by a comunity of people who's DCC you are still supporting. if this account is anything less then soul crushing to you as a provider, then you have a serious problem. indeed you may well have lost 2 applications this day I'm pretty sure that somewhere down the road in a few years time, somebody is going to posit: Of course ! let's retire max, we can't support another DCC and numbers are flagging... "We also acquire tech, redesign and re-engineer it, even rewrite it entirely, to fit into our products and workflows and yes, if it is more efficient to do so, we just integrate it." Would you care to balance the value of your in-house content versus the tools you've acquired ? NEX NAIAD OPEN SUBDIV XGEN Cat Quad Chamfer grease pensil Zookeaper ICE...on and on and on... Should we broaden the definition of tool ?: 3D studio max Alias MAYA Softimage. Mudbox.... The list is endless, and illustrates a point. "It is incorrect to think that Autodesk is only interested in acquiring technology" That is all you have ever done in this industry. So far as M&E is concerned you have never created anything. you have acquired and maintained, and when it becomes self evident that you have bitten off so much more then you can chew to develop, you have bought and feverishly integrated other peoples solutions, and when that hasen't been enough, you have as is presently painfully obvious, discontinued. This is the main difference between you and Side FX, or you and Pixology, they can tailor their users experience, and when asked they can change things and improve things at a core level. I'm sure you would like to be as responsive, but you find yourselves as custodians of 30 years worth of legacy code, and still attempting to build of this outdated and rotting foundation. The most interesting thing you could do is create from the ground up a new DCC able to compete and lead the next gen, using all the acquired knowledge and IP gleamed from your previous acquisitions the first real true AD M&E solution, something to be rightfully proud of, something so good even in time maya studios would transition to, true it might cost a lot of money, but at least you'd be alive !. but... you will not do this, this will not happen because, you are not developers.
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