I think if you really, really want to help the Softimage user base you will
get together with us to work out the best way to make this transition work,
because clearly what Autodesk has DICTATED has only infuriated the
community, there has to be a better way than what has transpired. Arguably
the biggest issue has been that you have discontinued a product that as of
now and perhaps even 2 years down the road, has no comparison with the
alternatives. To me that seems borderline criminal. It would be nice if
Autodesk reached out to the Softimage community to reach some compromise how
to end Softimage.
-----Original Message-----
From: Maurice Patel
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:06 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: new Q&A with AD
Hi Perry,
The article was a transcript of a verbal discussion so things are a bit
rambling and maybe not always as clear as I intended. However I don't recall
ever mentioning that we put Softimage on life support. What we were trying
to do was see if we could keep developing it more efficiently. Yes we were
not planning on increasing investment in it and we never stated that we
were. However we were trying to find solutions to continue development.
I understand your frustration, but what we are doing now is exactly what you
are asking for: telling you our plans (just as we have done in the past);
which is that we have decided, now, to do no more than maintain Softimage
for the next two years. And we are telling everyone that that is our intent.
Sure we could have made that decision earlier - and then we a would have
told you earlier - but when we spun up development in Singapore it was
because we were looking for alternatives to continue developing Softimage
not for ways to piss off Softimage customers.
It is not true that we do not care about keeping customers productive and
minimizing disruption to their pipelines and business. Every year we spend
significant resources maintaining legacy capabilities for just that reason.
A lot of people ask why there are 6 ways to do the same thing in Maya - well
because we continue to support the ability to open previous projects and
integrate into existing pipelines to the best of our ability. It is
incorrect to think that Autodesk invests millions of dollars into the M&E
business to do exactly this because we do not care about our customers -
though it is quite understandable that at this point in time you feel we do
not care about Softimage customers.
For all our products, Autodesk never states publicly what its plans are
because we cannot (other than in very general high level terms). We cannot
talk publicly about specific future product releases or features and
inevitably those are the only questions people want answered when they talk
about a product's future. We can only guarantee what the status of a
software is at the present moment. We can talk about goals - such as our
goal to integrate artist-friendly aspects of Softimage into Maya but not
talk about exactly what or when. Not because we don't want to - it would
make all our lives a whole lot easier. We don't enjoy being vague
However if we broke the rules we would go out of business very quickly. We
would have to defer all our revenue which means not being able to pay our
employees, suppliers and partners. To do so would be completely
irresponsible and impact hundreds of thousands of customers in M&E, millions
if Autodesk did this across its industries. This is a very real challenge
because the feedback from all our customers is consistently - how can we
trust you when you do not? But you cannot ask us to break rules which were
put in place for good measure - to stop companies selling vaporware to both
customers and investors. Sure if you are a privately held company you can
say what you want but not if you are publicly traded. Now we can all have
our opinion of whether public trading as a means of securing investment is
good or bad for society, but none of us can change the fact that Autodesk is
publicly traded and therefore accountable to the SEC. This is a huge
challenge. We have acquired products in the past from small start-ups where
they had promised all kinds of future features. We have then had to defer
all revenue on those products until we could actually build everything they
promised which can take years. Years of development with no revenue. And we
have done it because we felt it was the right and responsible thing to do.
So these things are not trivial.
Finally, my comment on the 2-year mark was not meant as an insult. First we
are here listening to feedback, dialoguing and responding. Changes in our
plans reflect this so it is incorrect to assume that we don't care and are
not trying - just because we cannot give you everything you are asking for.
Secondly we actually are not experts at discontinuing products so we make
mistakes - and then we try to fix them. Fixing things is not a bad thing.
Third the reason we had a problem is because we created a special offering
for Softimage users that was non-standard. From day one customers always had
the option to continue to use their license in perpetuity. They even had an
option to transition to Maya or 3ds Max and continue to use both licenses in
perpetuity. Were we had a SNAFU was what happened on the licensing side if
you stayed on subscription. There were some incorrect assumptions on our end
and we fixed them.
Maurice
Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134
