When Daniel Langlois ran the company, the customer facing element was very design and artist centric. It spoke to the end user. Daniel was selling inspiration, a vision.
When Microsoft entered the picture, they threw money at it to make it more visible and accessible with the peak being around the time of the photo you reference. When Daniel Langlois left the company and Microsoft later sold it to Avid, there was a noticeable shift in personality transitioning to more of an engineering focus with attention to user friendliness and corporate like global branding. The company didn't speak through it's leader's vision anymore, but instead through the face of it's products which didn't have a central voice. Sumatra was still being sold on inspiration, but Daniel wasn't around anymore to push the message. In some ways, Daniel Langlois' Softimage was just like Steve Jobs' Apple. When you bought from Apple, you were buying Steve Jobs' visions and being inspired by him, and that momentum carried you to the purchase. Today Apple still exists and sells really well, but it speaks through it's products and it's products don't have that same inspirational connection they had when Steve Jobs was around to push them. Matt Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 11:07:39 -0500 From: Pierre Schiller <activemotionpictu...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #274 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com How much is that Sotimage ICE shop bag again? Alienware logo-like in picture #52 ( I meant). Were we even that far ahead in the future, back then? OMM (Oh my Mind) Eisner?s original book (that?s like looking Illusion of Iife back in the 60?s original print)! My mind, come to think of this, this merchandise was so powerful to sell XSI (I came into it in 2k) that I can?t even imagine what could?ve come of XSI with this branding if it kept flowing into the stores and specialized 3d magazines... Oh wait..I know I can imagine, that?s why japan and Konami made a big name for Softimage! -Seeing this on America, AD (and low-rate-configure-it-yourself-crazy-crashing-in-sales-competitor-software) wasn?t getting the love it thought it deserved, and then...yeah, let?s close Softimage division.... these softimagers really know how to be catchy and stylized, that can get our never-updated-from-the-ground-up-lets-keep-patching-software-for-another14-years 3d-package) look bad.. There, I let it out. Cheers. ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
