Here's an idea that I think could work really well if Autodesk is open minded
and wants to get with it today instead of waiting many years for the cloud and
eventual backlash from customers over various other changes that go with it.
Fact: Softimage doesn't have the same market share as Max or Maya.
Fact: Softimage is a complete production solution.
Fact: Softimage is not getting the exposure it needs to prosper along it's
intended path.
Fact: Autodesk is a slow moving boat that is ticking off many customers from
perceived lack of progress on many products they develop and sell.
Problem:
Autodesk doesn't recognize they are losing custom trust and pushing them to
competing products as they become available to address their needs.
Solution:
Continue to develop and support Softimage and other products with lesser market
share, but make them open source.
Why?:
Studios still clinging to these products probably have a lot
invested whether it be time, money, energy, expertise, or all of the above.
Rather than screw these customers over by suffocating the products they depend
on, let studios take destiny into their own hands. Not everybody can or is
interested in waiting for a cloud solution down the road - they need solutions
today. There's no guarantee customers will buy into a cloud based Autodesk
product on the mass scale either.
Opening up the source code could potentially breathe new life into the product
and perhaps turn around it's fortunes for productions that otherwise wouldn't
look at it for financial or political reasons. A large studio with adequate
R+D capabilities might prefer to be able to tinker and contribute than have to
work around problems all the time. We're already seeing this play out in
products from other companies.
Personally, I would love the opportunity to be able to get into the code and
fix all the annoyances that have been hanging around since the year 2000, many
of which probably aren't too difficult to find and fix. Would love to finish
and rework some of the unfinished stuff too as it's been too long. Nothing
more frustrated to a capable artist than for a tool to do 90% of the job only
to fall short and hit a roadblock of the last piece that's absolutely required
to do the job right.....or get it done at all. Open source could allow those
frustrations to be remedied with benefit to both the user base as well as
Autodesk.
Matt
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Maurice Patel
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:42 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: In case you missed it..
Well, we have said that we are committed to developing and marketing Softimage.
It might not be exactly in the way you expect but that commitment has been
explicitly stated by myself and others. The discussion has been about our
tactics and why we do things the way we do.
Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134
From:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Daniel H
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 2:59 PM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: In case you missed it..
Re: "We are very well aware and I and my team work hard to do the most we can
with the resources we have." - Maurice Patel
Seriously Maurice... you have any-time access to "freely" speak directly to the
main vein of the SI community. Does it cost AD anything to make a simple text
statement of confidence on a list, blog, or forum? Is Autodesk really committed
to the future and continuing development of Softimage? Is Softimage just being
used as acquired tech to be robbed from? It's ok if it's the later, although we
won't transition over to Maya, we'll just counter by transitioning to Houdini.
Do you really want my continued business Maurice? Does Autodesk really want to
keep my business? Should we just get it over with and start giving our
hard-earned money to SideFX? 3D software isn't cheap ya know. What would you
like us to do? Where's a free statement or two of "confidence" to keep us
investing in Softimage?
Daniel
VFXM
