Autodesk Acquires Softimage

[Mark L. Pederson]

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=12022457&siteID=123112

well ... I would have skipped that deal and picked up Luxology and Natural Motion ... but what do I know ... besides the fact that AVID just got $35M ... which could pay for the development of more REDCODE INTEGRATION!!

[Peter Majtan]

Hi Mark! You have no idea how funny this is for me... :)
Just 3 years ago I was coordinating a project between AVID and APPLE to port the discontinued Softimage 3D to Mac OS-X and bring it up to speed. Our company was to finance the project, but the talks got stuck between AVID and APPLE. I know Mark Stevens (MD Softimage/VP AVID) personally and I am sure this is for the best of Sotimage, he would not have it otherwise... By the look of it - Apple has just missed the deal of the century...

Thanks for the post! :)

[Mark L. Pederson]

By the look of it - Apple has just missed the deal of the century...

Thanks for the post! :)

Apple skipped the Alias/Wavefront boat as well ....

Last call Mr. Jobs ... MAXON or LUXOLOGY ..?

Place your bets ... Apple or Adobe ... someone's gonna write the checks ....

[Greg M]

shit...hope they dont sweep it under the rug. We are a XSI facility and the latest version is a major leap forward. I would look forward to integration with Smoke and Flame.

[Adam Glick]

there's a very vigorous discussion about this going on at cgsociety.org (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=59&t=688242&page=1&pp=15)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=59&t=688242&page=1&pp=15

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Terrible, terrible, awful news... XSI, Maya and MAX under one roof.

And WTF?? $35M? I would have guessed it'd be worth more than that. IIRC, that's way less than what Avid paid Microsoft for it several years ago. Jeez... Where was Adobe and Apple on this one. Seems like it would have been a no-brainer for either.

I'm all Lightwave, Modo and XSI here... With the internal politics these days at NewTek, Lightwave seems like it's going nowhere. Modo is awesome, but hasn't matured into a full 3D power app yet -- but it's my modeler of choice and I do my surfacing / rendering for architectural and simple animations / stills. I sure hope Luxology finds a way to kick it into high gear and get Modo rolling.

What / who is Autodesk going to go after next? With the three big apps now in one place, I bet they go after Mental Images. Seeing how they hold the bulk of the software that uses Mental Ray.

[Adam Glick]

hmm. mental was just purchased last year by Nvidia. I doubt they'll be on the block any time soon.

It's an interesting turn in never-ending interesting turns...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Heh... I forgot about the nVidia / Mental Images deal. OK, they're probably not going anywhere.

[Peter Majtan]

Then again they can buy Nvidia - two fies one shot... :devil:

[Peter Majtan]

Or Apple can just buy Autodesk - now that would be a bomb! They sure have the cash for it... :)

[Viktor SvobodaOLD]

Or Apple can just buy Autodesk - now that would be a bomb! They sure have the cash for it... :)

... and they would kill Maya/MAX Flame, etc. as they killed Shake.
I don't think they would buy Luxology, it would be against their philosophy.

35 mil$ is pretty low for company such as Softimage, mayby this financial crysis is real? :wink:

[Peter Majtan]

Not long ago the whole of AVID was for sale for $200M, but yeah, $35M feels like garage sale...

[Viktor SvobodaOLD]

I am wondering why they bought them? To have most percent market chare in small industry as ours? I understand that it is just business, Autodesk now can claim that they have more then 60% of market share in 3D industry but why? Wouldn't be better to improve customer support or spend time and money for R&D on software they already have?

[Priyesh P.]

This is a sad day...Autodesk is one of the worst companies I know, they`ll definately ruin XSI as well. I was terribly shocked reading it, first thing I thought: today must be april 1st.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I don't understand why 1 company would want to ship 3 different products which would compete with each other it's just weird.
It was weird enough when they did both Max and Maya... though Autodesk is a much cooler name than Alias.

[Priyesh P.]

People are shocked wherever I`m looking. There`s quite nobody seeing anything positive from this...

[Jason Diamond]

AVID bought Softimage for 180mil and sold it for 35mil. that 35 mil is gonna go to cover the net loss they had this quarter vs last year and still not even it up. i doubt they will flush it into more development. we have Michael P in our corner so theres always that :) .

help us Michael P you're our only hope...

[Adam Glick]

I think that in the short-run, the fresh Softimage faces at Autodesk will liberate fresh ideas and "syngergies". (oh shit, did I just use that word?)

I think that effective product development is often about about really smart people sharing ideas about a topic they are passionate about. The "meeting of the minds" of the folks in the two development and product design groups may go through a spurt of innovation that is good for the wend users and the industry.

However, in the medium-term, if this "consolidation" trend continues, it will almost certainly stiffle innovation in the industry. Strong competition for the top spot typically works out best for the state of the art as well as the interests of the consumer. With less serious competition, complacency is a concern.

In the long run, if Autodesk doesn't continue to deliver the "high-end" products that artists & facilities want to use, then the market will be further opened for clever small companies with powerful new tools such as Luxology (MODO) and others to step in and capitalize on the situation.

The free market wins. (?)

[M.Halsell]

On the brighter side of things, Softimage won't be on the sinking ship with Avid. Softimage is a good tool provider. Discreet is a a good home, lot's of development and financial muscle. Discreet is very, very focused on the tools and technology. Discreet is pretty grounded in their core competency, so they won't be as distracted (ie Apple).

True XSI and family will have to assimilate and the future incarnations may different. But perhaps Discreet won't pull the rug out from under the Softimage user base immediately. Since the Discreet's aquisition of Alias in 2006, Maya hasn't that changed radically.

High growth and high margin days of the industry are in the rear view mirrow. Discreet will provide the sound financial guidance needed to keep these tools alive and in the marketplace. Which is a very good thing for the professionals that rely on these to make a living.

[Priyesh P.]

I think that in the short-run, the fresh Softimage faces at Autodesk will liberate fresh ideas and "syngergies". (oh shit, did I just use that word?)




Discreet is a a good home, lot's of development and financial muscle. Discreet is very, very focused on the tools and technology. Discreet is pretty grounded in their core competency, so they won't be as distracted (ie Apple).


Sorry having to say this, but nothing could be further from reality than these two of your opinions. Just look back what happened with those applications Autodesk acquired, sometimes I even get the feeling that it is the Discreet part that messes everything up. There was an app called "Frost" for virtual studios, "River" for sound, "edit" for...eh editing, all three disappeared just years after their acquisitions, then comes Illuminaire Paint and Composition which were at least fusioned into Combustion but only crawls forward since two versions back. The big stupidity is Flint/Flame/Inferno which factually runs on the same hardware (except the stone storage) but has a difference in pricing that could easily buy you a luxurious house. But most hilarious are Max & Maya whose only progress are their version numbers (ok, they`ve put "nucleus" into maya...OH, and that navigation cube!!!). And Toxik`s entry was a big joke in my opinion - they advertised the database-centric workflow and "next gen" technology...but where is it on the greater scale? Toxik is nearly meaningless in the industry compared to fusion and nuke.
Mudbox (to finish the rant) is too fresh to judge if the recent improvements in it`s "version 2009" were already in the works before acquisition or not. Summary: Autodesk didn`t do anything good in the past, so this is in no way anything positive. I didn`t even touch their insane pricing and licensing scheme so far which makes my blood boil only thinking about it...and please don`t forget what happened to 5D cyborg - I will not speculate about assimilate...

[Adam Glick]

Sorry having to say this, but nothing could be further from reality than these two of your opinions. Just look back what happened with those applications Autodesk acquired, sometimes I even get the feeling that it is the Discreet part that messes everything up. There was an app called "Frost" for virtual studios, "River" for sound, "edit" for...eh editing, all three disappeared just years after their acquisitions, then comes Illuminaire Paint and Composition which were at least fusioned into Combustion but only crawls forward since two versions back. The big stupidity is Flint/Flame/Inferno which factually runs on the same hardware (except the stone storage) but has a difference in pricing that could easily buy you a luxurious house. But most hilarious are Max & Maya whose only progress are their version numbers (ok, they`ve put "nucleus" into maya...OH, and that navigation cube!!!). And Toxik`s entry was a big joke in my opinion - they advertised the database-centric workflow and "next gen" technology...but where is it on the greater scale? Toxik is nearly meaningless in the industry compared to fusion and nuke.
Mudbox (to finish the rant) is too fresh to judge if the recent improvements in it`s "version 2009" were already in the works before acquisition or not. Summary: Autodesk didn`t do anything good in the past, so this is in no way anything positive. I didn`t even touch their insane pricing and licensing scheme so far which makes my blood boil only thinking about it...and please don`t forget what happened to 5D cyborg - I will not speculate about assimilate...

so basically you're saying that the tools and the product development decision-making at Autodesk/discrete :

1. "messes everything up"
2. are "stupid"
3. is "meaningless"
4. "Autodesk didn`t do anything good in the past"
5. "insane"
6. and they make your blood boil

Did I miss anything?


*edit* - not trying to be a jerk here. This is just a broadly sweeping and all-inclusive indictment of the most prolific company in the VFX and digital motion media design technology space.

I'm just wondering what happened to you personally that causes such as "axe to grind" so to speak... no disrespect meant.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Did I miss anything?
Somebody needs a Percocet -:w00t:

and for what it's worth ... I think Mudbox is pretty cool.

[Ross Vincent]

world domination - wha, ha, ha!

[GlennChan]

It looks like Avid paid ~$201 million for Softimage from Microsoft, which consisted of DS, 3D, Eddie, and Toonz.
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=35215

And now they are selling part of what they bought for just $35 million. It seems to me that Avid got ripped off somewhere along the line. Maybe they know something that Autodesk doesn't know? But even then, if you are going to hand somebody the keys to a near monopoly, you might as well receive a premium for doing so.

2- Avid as a company is losing money. Selling a presumably-profitable segment of their company won't change that... it'll be interesting to see if Avid can turn their ship around. (I doubt it though.... lately it seems that there has been a lot of inaction in making their company a profitable one.)

[Peter Majtan]

AVID should have stayed focused on ProTools & their own editing SW. They were (still are) bound to disappear from the market, unless they focus on what they were good at. I am personally pissed of about Sumatra. The way they killed the original concept of DS and separated 3D out of it. I was one of the initiators of the integrated DS platform, 3D was meant to be one of the side icons in the DS system that was so much more then just the editing/FX system. Even the kernel for XSI was for the first few months "DS.exe" - they just blocked the 3D code in DS and everything else but 3D in XSI. Then they start calling it AVID-DS and AVID-XSI, while at the same time call Media Illusion as Softimage Media Illusion... When I saw that I knew it was bye bye to the original DS concept - here comes the customer extortion...

I don't denny it - I hate AVID and I love Softimage, but after 15+ years with Softimage I am now learning Maya, since we all or on OS-X platform...

:) Peter

[Priyesh P.]

so basically you're saying that the tools and the product development decision-making at Autodesk/discrete :

1. "messes everything up"
2. are "stupid"
3. is "meaningless"
4. "Autodesk didn`t do anything good in the past"
5. "insane"
6. and they make your blood boil

Did I miss anything?

Yeah. They are evil ;-)



*edit* - not trying to be a jerk here. This is just a broadly sweeping and all-inclusive indictment of the most prolific company in the VFX and digital motion media design technology space.

I'm just wondering what happened to you personally that causes such as "axe to grind" so to speak... no disrespect meant.

I`ve closely watched what they did the last 5 years, in a nutshell, it was quite nothing. Their main focus seems to be on their shareholders only - and we, the artists have quite no choice than accept their non-action, you can`t switch from one app to the other that fast, it`s going to take at least a year - not speaking about the fact that a big chunk of the 3D industry is max & maya dominated.
I´ve worked with Maya last year and it was hilarious, the GUI and it`s logic is laughable in comparision to xsi, c4d and modo.

[Adam Glick]

I would believe that Avid's original vision of developing the DS into a unified 2D/3D/editorial/VFX platform proved harder to design and implement than it looked on paper.

They were originally working on combining elements of matador, elastic reality, Soft XSI ("Sumatra" at the time), DS and Twister (mental ray).

*edit* just saw Peter's post* I agree Peter - Maybe there's something to be said for sticking with what you're best at and not trying to own the whole pipeline...

[Bruce Allen]

AVID bought Softimage for 180mil and sold it for 35mil. that 35 mil is gonna go to cover the net loss they had this quarter vs last year and still not even it up. i doubt they will flush it into more development. we have Michael P in our corner so theres always that :) .

help us Michael P you're our only hope...

Bwahaha... well, they are keeping the DS part (which is what they really wanted all along, right?), aren't they? Don't think DS was worth the 145mil difference, though.

Agree DS could be so much more than what it is now. I mean, come on, they should be leading the world in 2D / 3D integration. Come on... 3d objects rendered in Mental Ray in a compositor - how can it be so hard?

That said, when the heck are nVidia going to get large chunks of Mental Ray running on their gfx cards? They have the chance to design the hardware from scratch to do this... hope it's in the works and the reason the 260 / 280 are kinda gigantic is because they're laying the foundations to prep for this ;)

Sad to hear they got close to porting XSI to Mac and then stopped - it's such a great program. I know a lot of design houses in LA who would kill for a Mac version of XSI.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[mikeburton]

I am concerned for AVID with this move. AVID is a staple in professional editing software and ProTools for audio. XSI being sold is not a good sign IMO.
I hadn't worked on an Avid Media Composer since College and for the first time in years I was asked specifically to edit a commercial on Avid MC. I primarily use FCS. I must say, I missed working in an Avid as a few days before hand I attempted to re-familiarize myself with the MC. Couple things I noticed,

1. (The Commerical was a RED Job) - Getting files into Media Composer 3.05 was a drag to say the least. Transcoding to DNxHD and ingesting it into an AVID MC was just long and counter productive. I could have had a first rough cut done in FCP by the time my footage got into the AVID. But that's just a RED/AVID thing that will hopefully be worked out over time.

2. The Interface and way of doing things hasn't changed, mostly!? (this is good and bad).
Good - I slowly began to remember where everything was from my college professor who made us memorize all the keyboard shortcuts :) It has many features and tools that just work better and make more editing sense than FCP
Bad - Nothing has changed! Avid IMO needs an overhaul. I feel they are attempting to play in the new age arena but are slow to take the dive. Unfortunately, I say this with sadness. May sound strange being a FCP user mostly, but I want AVID to succeed. I wish there were more opportunities that AVID would jump on quickly.

[Patrick Tresch]

Has DS been sold with the bundle?

Avid did not take the leap to push their antique platforms to a up to today platform (wich made FCP happy and strong).DS should have been their basic interface. AVID Xpress/MC seams to be at the level of Imovie software with some work around...

Hope DS will find a good godfader.

Patrick

[Adam Glick]

Avid kept DS

[Greg M]

Autodesk explains the purchase to shareholders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7UWImpG54

[RivaiC]

Nice one :)

I couldnt understand after a major leap and development in XSI 7 with breakthrough ICE, and 3rd party development renderer, it just hard to believe.

[Greg M]

Nice one :)

I couldnt understand after a major leap and development in XSI 7 with breakthrough ICE, and 3rd party development renderer, it just hard to believe.

if you looked at Avid's financial Statements it isn't.

[Priyesh P.]

I couldnt understand after a major leap and development in XSI 7 with breakthrough ICE, and 3rd party development renderer, it just hard to believe.

Life`s a bitch. But this is way too mean...

[RivaiC]

if you looked at Avid's financial Statements it isn't.

Do you have the link ?

[David Kirlew]

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=82844&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1216782&highlight=

Here are the Avid financial statements.

[GlennChan]

Autodesk explains the purchase to shareholders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7UWImpG54
Oh snap. Great video. :)

[GlennChan]

if you looked at Avid's financial Statements it isn't.
Avid does has cash... and it has blown it on buying back shares.


During the first quarter of 2008, the company used $93.2 million in cash to repurchase 4.3 million shares of common stock under the previously-announced share buyback program.

It looks like the current management is taking its shareholders for a ride. If they don't succeed in turning Avid around, their buyback would simply have made shareholders' losses a lot worse (e.g. compared to issuing a dividend). And so far, it looks like Avid is still bleeding money. And they're sitting on what should be gold mines- Avid and Pro Tools both have large market shares. Technology companies make huge profits with scale... with such high volume, they should be quite profitable.