AD didn't listen to a single thing said by Softimage users since .. well never. Also never made any meaningful contact through all those years. That says enough. Talking about vaporware.. AD was selling Softimage under saying that it will be there to stay... then kill it. How is that in any way different from any other vaporware? You just keep paying subscription and you will know what you are buying when we make it... Cat in the bag I tell you all that subscription mumbo jumbo. There was time when you first get free demo, then see what is it an d if it suits you and THEN you buy it. Time when customers was cared for. Now across all of the industry it is completely different situation.. customers are just mere numbers and not even respected for what they are paying not to mention the fact that they are not getting their money worth...
There was absolutely no reason to Kill Softimage 1st then ask users what they want. Transition program is complete crap and SPIT in the face. If AD is confident that Maya will be as good as marketing is crapping all over it would keep SI and let people go to Maya by choice because it is really better tool. The fact is, Softimage is more compete and for artists better tool, killing it got a lot of people in full load of crap and now they are being offered to jump into another pile of crap. On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:14 PM, phil harbath <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 > > >
