Let's review the past: In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative.
In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft - mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I'm sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you'd be paying for a name.....one which many people mispronounce. Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, "so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most?" Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using >> in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars >> because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying >> Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums.... > > I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied > to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be > built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's > designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need > to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from > scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted > time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with > manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been > about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. > -- [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg]
