Hi Paul, Adam We do understand that people build their livelihoods on our software. This is something we take seriously, although (with good reason) you might find it hard to believe right now. Every year we spend significant resources maintaining legacy code so that the new features we add to our products don't radically disrupt customers workflows. We really do try not to take unnecessary risks with our software. And we have an incredibly long track record of developing software for the long term - one can just look at AutoCAD and 3ds Max. Even acquisitions like Flame and Maya have continued to be extensively developed at Autodesk as have other product acquisitions.
We have stated and are committed both to developing our core products and to innovating. Our decision to focus on 3ds max and Maya was so we could continue to do both adequately (not one or the other). We are a high tech company so it wouldn't be realistic to expect us not to try to innovate even if the risks are high. That does not mean that is all we do. I am not denying that Softimage customers are now facing some challenging decisions. But several have said on the forum, and I would personally agree with them, that in this industry - as in any high-tech industry - it can be risky to have all your eggs in one basket, even if that means looking outside of Autodesk (and there are some very interesting solutions out there). Giants fall (look at SGI). We are not immune to that either. Personally, I do not think that will happen, but no one at Autodesk will ever make any explicit guarantees about the future. All I can say is make your software decisions based on what you see today - anything else would be, to a certain extent, vaporware and speculation, especially the farther out you look. maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 12:15 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Autodesk webinar In Softimage we have a production-proven, solid tool. ICE works TODAY, not 2 years from today, not in a dream of a product called Bifrost, but right NOW. Are you telling everyone here who has based their ENTIRE business around Softimage, we should trust Autodesk to have a fully functioning tool ready that will do EVERYTHING Softimage can do TODAY by the time Softimage hits the end? We should believe that after you've just admitted that Skyline was a failure? These aren't a bunch of ideas or concepts here, these are our businesses! We feed our families, we pay our bills, we survive based on Softimage and now we have to hope that somehow Bifrost is not in the 99% failure, but 1% innovation? Do you seriously want us to bet our future on that? Would you go home and tell your significant other that rather than focusing on a tool that works for you, makes money for you right now, you're betting everything on a promise from Autodesk?? Who on earth does business like that?? Is Autodesk going to pay our mortgages or feed our families when Bifrost falls apart? Because unless that's the plan, I can't think of a single sane person who would go along with this Maya-only plan. This is absolutely a terrible way to do business and everyone at Autodesk knows it. They've just dug in their heels to avoid looking like they've made a colossal mistake. -Paul On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Adam Sale <adamfs...@gmail.com<mailto:adamfs...@gmail.com>> wrote: Maurice, in all of this talk the one glaring omission is this. You guys are always trying to innovate. You have said success is often 99 percent failure to one percent success. Well, in the event bifrost falls by the wayside like skyline did, all of a sudden autodesk will have zero node based solutions to do the type of ice work we expect of a dcc product. How is that a wise move as a company? Its like throwing out the baby with the bath water and seems incredibly short sighted. So as we move to bifrost to begin our transition away from ICE, we may be in this same mess a couple years down the road if it doesnt pan out. Imagine the fallout then.. people will go absolutely nuclear on AD. Adam
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