Hi Perry,
Email is not the best way to express anything. I have spoken to many of you
live in the past few months and you can interpret words in so many ways. For
those that want to make this a conspiracy leading back to the acquisition you
are wrong. Marc Petit did believe in having all the products under one roof.
Like I said yesterday we spent a lot of money making sure that Softimage got
plugged into the Autodesk channel and education engines and we put the product
in the suites to try to get more usage from the big 3dsmax and Maya user base.
There is all this talk of marketing. Everyone these days makes their buying
decisions based off their peers from information in forums like this. Marketing
isn't about press releases and web sites as nobody visits autodesk.com. With
tens of thousands of kids graduating each year from professional programs each
year most pick their 3D tool of choice or arsenal by the time they are 18-19
and they can do 3d, edit, comp, and make web sites. So we tried to get more
usage for softimage through suites and education and it did not work. All the
marketing and demos for Autodesk the last few years has been around suites just
like with Adobe who rarely markets Photoshop or After Effects.
If you feel like that strategy is the main cause of the continued decline of
Softimage then that is fair. Avid did not have the money to compete with
Autodesk and according to Marc Stevens sold it after Marc said there was no
chance of Soft lasting. The other mystery buyers were other CAD companies that
wanted to have a product to compete with 3dsmax and Cinema 4D in the massive
visualization market. Autodesk was the only buyer that wanted to keep Softimage
alive in entertainment.
So the clear announcement of change of intent was made this month based off a
decision only made a few months ago. We gave a two year window to transition
and for many a fair offer to go to 3dsmax or Maya. Our strategy to get soft
adoption in the much larger 3dsmax and Maya user base was through suites and
education and it did not work. We are sorry it did not work.
I have listened to many of the personal stories of how this affects people.
Like the story you had with your father I have a story about mine. My father
ran a pharmaceutical research company and when I was a kid the workers in the
plant went on strike for higher pay. They picketed in front of the plant and
when things got more tense someone came to our house in the middle of the night
and through a big rock right through the window next to my room where me and
brother would play legos all day. Being six years old you can imagine that was
some pretty scary shit. But my dad took me aside and told me that you have to
take responsibility for the actions you take and how they affect people.
We can say sorry but that will not change the decision and it rings hollow
because it could be a monkey typing on a keyboard. What we can do is listen to
how this has impacted you and be responsible for helping you get back to a
place where each of you are back to creating 3D art without thinking about the
platform you use.
I have been very happy to meet a lot of you on this forum for the first time
which sucks but is still a good thing. The calls that I have more than make up
for being called a liar or an idiot or a callous corporate suit.
cv/
________________________________________
From: [email protected]
[[email protected]] on behalf of Perry Harovas
[[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 9:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
I guess what the issue (at least for me) is, is that while you are
correct that Autodesk did talk about moving development to Singapore,
Autodesk did NOT say that the product was
in a state of minimal development. This, along with Chris V.'s
statement led everyone (and how could it not) to think things were
business as usual. Different team, but everything would be fine,
things would be the same, just with new people. This should not
denigrate the Singapore team, who did great work, especially towards
the end right before EOL announcement.
You all may have intended to keep Softimage alive, but had we known
that the status had changed to one of very little, or minimal
development, we would have known that the status had changed
with regards to what we would be getting in the future and how
Autodesk saw the product in the future.
Look, I fluctuate back and forth as to if Softimage was on the
chopping block when purchased, or not. I feel that the people
involved, especially Marc Petit, really thought it would survive.
And really, it doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that it was
not clear (it was basically hidden) that the status of Softimage
within the company
had changed to one where it would be maintained, or minimally developed.
I will gladly change my mind if you, Maurice, or anyone else can point
me to the statement where it was EXPLICITLY stated to us, the users,
that the status had changed.
I don't mean that we should have KNOWN it had changed, I mean a
statement where someone came right out and SAID it would be minimally
developed and/or maintained.
That may seem like splitting hairs, but I think it makes all the
difference in the world as to establishing the credibility of
Autodesk. One is just a general statement that
lets US decide what we think it all means, the other one (that I don't
remember ever reading) is a statement of FACT.
One final thought: Isn't it obvious that apologies (good, heartfelt,
honest apologies) about the mistakes that were made, would go a long
way here?
Part of the reason that people are so suspicious, frankly, is because
many of you don't exude much remorse, if any. That may be a corporate
culture thing, it may be the lack of
intonation that happens with email, but regardless, you need to know
that many of you are coming across as pretty casual
and unfazed (except with the amount of emails and questions you have
to answer multiple times).
On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Maurice Patel
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Rob,
We moved people off of other teams to work on Skyline too. And we did not say
anything to those users either - resources get moved around regularly in
organizations from project to project This is one of the reasons why we try to
avoid getting into discussions about how many engineers are working on X, Y or
Z - especially as that can always be subjective in terms of output sometimes a
small team can be more productive than a big team and vice versa. When we moved
all the Montreal engineers off of Softimage and moved development to Singapore
we did talk about it.
maurice
Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rob Chapman
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 5:51 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
Hi Maurice
yes sorry, my previous mail the 'you' was much more directed at Autodesk the
entity than you personally, I hope you understand. and yes it was mashed, but
I hope to elaborate.
Now that 'you' (Autodesk) are making it is very clear that those great
engineers that were moved onto other projects were one part of the reason for
purchase, the other was Softimage the product. but at the time , whilst
assuring us the existing customers of Softimage the product was going to be ok
eg 'the future is bright' etc I do feel that the Softimage user base at that
time were never informed properly of the true extent of the engineer stripping
until long afterwards .
this is perhaps one of those lingering disagreeable tastes as is feels like
your obligation was fulfilled with minimum effort whereas back then there was
not a sense of EOL as we were assured the product was going to be ok. as long
as it was sold as a plugin. or a suite. or not all...
so to clarify. with some actual history because yes I am not entirely sure of
the facts here and others may be more clued :) but at what point were the
Softimage customers informed that the entire engineering team had been moved to
a new application? was this only, as you say in Autodesk's statement of intent?
as this, in my opinion, was never truly communicated and somewhat hidden to the
user base until much later on.
--
Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects
http://www.TheAfterImage.com
-25 Years Experience
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)
