Response ON: I would submit that the change in ownership in no way changes the fundamental priorities of the business, merely the people involved.
The sole purpose of any for-profit company is and always has been to achieve profits by selling its products at the price the market will bear to a market unwilling or unable to burden itself directly with the costs of developing, releasing, distributing, maintaining, and / or servicing competitive product(s) ... they make money my amortizing those costs over as many customers as possible. Given the nature of the product, and the overhead you mentioned, the only way to keep the price down is to dramatically increase the user base ... the fact that their price is rising indicates only that they've got some belief that their user base has stabilized and explosive growth is no longer possible. This is a common pattern with anything like Nuke ... once the product stabilizes and market dominance is achieved, the price stabilizes and tends to go up a little, while the company begins to focus on other products that might offer other customers. If you want to see the price go down, code a legitimate competitor. Response OFF On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Ned Wilson <[email protected]> wrote: > Rant ON: > > Well the Foundry is a business, which at the end of the day, has to make > people money. I would imagine that given the amount of expansion and new > development that has been going on, that the company was in need of > additional capital, if for no other reason than to fund continuing > development efforts and expand into new markets. > > I'm thinking that it might be difficult to make money in this business. At > the end of the day, the R&D cost is through the roof, and the market is very > small for end-users, a niche market at best. > > One thing that scares me about the Carlyle group is that they are in > business ONLY to make money for their investment partners. As time goes on, > they are going to insist that the Foundry turn double digit profits, or face > closure, or fire sale. Maintenance is only the beginning, really. Bring up > the cost of maintenance by a little bit, and see what the market will bear. > As time goes on the cost of doing business for the Foundry increases. > Fluctuation in the exchange rates, programmer salaries, office space rental, > even small items like food and power, all increase year over year. So I > think the market will consider it acceptable for the rates to go up, and > they will be paid, because nearly every major VFX house on the planet has > made an investment in Nuke. > > Here is the part that scares me. Maintenance on Nuke costs $1,000 per year > right now. Obviously, the Foundry needs to increase this by $X per year to > cover their increased cost of business. The market, on the other hand, is > willing to tolerate an increase of $Y. If $Y is greater than $X, the Carlyle > group is going to want to charge $Y, since they are a business solely > motivated by return on investment. I just hope that the desire for profits > doesn't negatively affect the Foundry in other ways. I hope that we won't > see a reduction in customer service, adverse working conditions for the > developers, holds on salary increases, increased product cost, etc. etc. > > The Foundry is a company that was established to serve the post production > community with initially a fantastic set of plugins, and now, a great > compositing package. The post production community has rewarded the Foundry > with giving it market domination in compositing. Now, when a private equity > firm invests, they become in charge. The post production community could > potentially be at their mercy, because Nuke adoption has become widespread > and there isn't a lot of competition in the space right now. > > At the end of the day, I hope that the Foundry doesn't become corporate, > and that the focus isn't entirely profit-motivated. I hope that the soul of > the company remains, and that they provide tools that help make what is in > people's imaginations a reality. > > Rant OFF. > > -n > > > On Apr 12, 2011, at 11:40 AM, Christopher Noellert wrote: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group > > > > Perhaps you've seen Fahrenheit 911? > > > > Best, > > Chris > > > > -- > > PublicVFX > > Chris Noellert > > 69 Market Street, Venice, CA, 90291 > > 310.450.6969 o > > 310.450.6999 f > > 310.699.2151 c > > [email protected] > > aim: [email protected] > > http://www.publicvfx.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Apr 12, 2011, at 11:36 AM, Eddie Offermann wrote: > > > >> I think I'd rather have a better resource for information about them > than Chuck Baldwin. > >> > >> Got anything from somebody that's not a bit of a nutter? > >> > >> On 04/12/2011 07:54 AM, andrei gheorghiu wrote: > >>> Carlyle Group : http://www.covenantnews.com/baldwin030328.htm > >>> > >>> No wonder TheFoundry didn't post anything about this on their web > site... > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Nuke-users mailing list > >>> > >>> [email protected] > >>> http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Eddie Offermann > >> blog: > >> http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/ imdb: > http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2835373/ > >> > >> linkedin: > >> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/B00/07B > >> > >> fax: 215-565-3799 - phone: (323) 638-4VFX > >> > >> Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a > >> man to fish and one day he'll trip and fall and put > >> his eye out on a fishing pole and it'll be all your > >> fault. > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Nuke-users mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Nuke-users mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users > > _______________________________________________ > Nuke-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users > -- END OF LINE
_______________________________________________ Nuke-users mailing list [email protected] http://support.thefoundry.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nuke-users
