People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.
AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold < pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote: > Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a > real business decision. If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and > Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's > insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas > and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat, > etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot > more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was > all for show IMHO. > > Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7% > of the revenue. They own enough patents & intellectual property that they > could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another > product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can > sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? > > Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust > claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. > > -Paul > > > > > ᐧ > > > On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez <emi...@e-roja.com>wrote: > >> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. >> >> Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will >> end. >> >> "We will continue to support and develop..." >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------- >> Emilio Hernández VFX & 3D animation. >> >> >> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>: >> >> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would >>> be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually >>> develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and >>> killing the Mac version was truly annoying. >>> >>> 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried >>> developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… >>> >>> With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are >>> receiving.. (irony) >>> >>> arhghh >>> >>> Jordi Bares >>> jordiba...@gmail.com >>> >>> On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez <emi...@e-roja.com> wrote: >>> >>> More reasons to stay with softimage >>> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" <gustav...@gmail.com> >>> escribió: >>> >>>> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as >>>> irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it >>>> up with that in mind. >>>> >>>> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> >>>> escreveu: >>>> >>>>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user >>>>> base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they >>>>> axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take. >>>>>> >>>>>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. >>>>>> >>>>>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. >>>>>> >>>>>> 3 - 3DMax goes next. >>>>>> >>>>>> Anyone want to bet? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gustavo E Boehs >>>> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | >>>> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/ >>>> >>>> >>> >> > -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
