There are many reasons for that. Only the top revenue generating products ever get slots on the front page of the website. Most of Autodesk's hundreds of products are not featured that way either and most of them generate more revenue than Softimage. I think many hoped that we would promote Softimage as an alternative to Maya or 3ds Max but that was never our goal. For the past few years we were heavily focused on promoting Suites in our campaigns although we have made the decision to focus more on the Maya and 3ds Max brands this year. Ultimately Marketing programs generally focus on where they believe they can get its best return-on-investment and that has been in selling upgrades and Suites. The bulk of our customers being on Maya and 3ds Max, our campaigns have tended to focus there. At the time of the acquisition a statement was made about the fact that one of the key drivers was to acquire a talented R&D team as much as it was the software. The exact quote being:
"Softimage has been developing state-of-the-art 3D technology for more than 20 years, and its products are recognized as best-of-breed in the entertainment industry," said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. "Upon the completion of this acquisition we will be adding Softimage technology and products to our portfolio, and welcoming one of the most talented teams in the industry to Autodesk Media & Entertainment. Both will help us accelerate the work of our Games Technology Group, as we build the next-generation of real-time, interactive 3D authoring tools for games, film and television." Although I cannot speak exactly as to what Marc's intentions were there was hope that we would be building new next-gen technologies as much as we would be maintaining existing ones. But like I said the plans evolved and changed because they always do. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andre De Angelis Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice, Thanks for taking the time to write this. We are all aware that there are things you are allowed to tell us and much that you are not and you cannot be blamed for that. I have always had the highest respect for you, but with all due respects, the explanation you have provided is far from satisfactory. Even if it is true that the decision to kill Softimage was only made last year, it does not explain why Softimage's presence on the AD web site has been practically non existent from the day AD acquired Softimage. The intention was made clear from the beginning. Having said that, Softimage has lasted longer than I anticipated. Regards On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Maurice Patel <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the M&E division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." We were optimistic that some of the R&D methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say "focus" what we mean is better balancing our finite resources so that we can still invest in new research projects - even if these might fail - while continuing to evolve and improve existing customer workflows. To enable us to continue the former we had to focus on Maya and 3ds Max for the latter. Regards maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 9:55 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice ? is softimage being discontinued because of cost issues ? or because it is impeding other AD products ? it may seem redundant, but this question has not been answered. -- Andre De Angelis
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