Autodesk Lays Off 7% Of Entire Staff

[dwigfor]

Does this affect any of the Softimage staff?? Hope you guys are okay!

http://mashable.com/2012/08/23/autodesk ... ire-staff/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/23/autod ... tumble-22/
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... ge=7&pp=15

Design software firm Autodesk has lost 22 percent of its value in after-hours trading on the NASDAQ exchange after a particularly bad earnings report for its fiscal second quarter.

Weren't we just talking about this?

Autodesk is a leading maker of 3D design and engineering software. It recently agreed to acquire fast growing video app Socialcam for $60 million to help it stay relevant.

The company’s second-quarter profit fell 9.3 percent year-over-year. Revenue was $569 million, a paltry increase of 4 percent year-over-year. Wall Street analysts were expecting revenue of $601 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

4% growth = 500 job losses... sad..

Car bass said:

The restructuring is focused primarily of the company’s shift to cloud and mobile computing.“This action allows us to continue to invest in recruiting and hiring people who can bring Autodesk the skills and experience that are critical for achieving our mid and long-term goals, says Bass. “As part of the ongoing platform shift, it’s clear to us that design and engineering software will move to cloud and mobile platforms. Cloud and mobile has been a major investment area for Autodesk over the past couple of years and this restructuring will accelerate our progress as we intend to further invest in employees with expertise and skill sets essential to this transition.

Stephen on cgtalk brought up an interesting quote from awhile back.


According to a recent interview with Autodesk's CEO Carl Bass, in a few years the company's software would be running online ("cloud-based" only). Quoting from the interview (2m26sec): "I'd say 2 to 3 years from now every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online."*

[CiaranM]

4% profit sounds pretty good to me...but I guess shareholder value maximisation trumps all. How sad.

[Rork]

I agree. This system is flawed in so many ways...

According to a recent interview with Autodesk's CEO Carl Bass, in a few years the company's software would be running online ("cloud-based" only). Quoting from the interview (2m26sec): "I'd say 2 to 3 years from now every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online."*

Well.... hell no.... if so... hello blender !

[Hirazi Blue]

For what it's worth, Carl Bass' "original" statement about online apps has been rebutted several times concerning M&E. On our own community, for instance, by Bellsey in this post and by Ken Pimentel over at the CGTalk. Not saying you should believe anyone on this matter, but you shouldn't necessarily believe everything either (especially concerning older remarks). But it's true, the rules might have been changed already also, making Carl Bass' statement now valid for M&E as well.

But 7% layoffs worldwide, that's quite a large number of people...
Let's just hope "our" guys get spared this time!
;)

PS The official Quarter Results press release states

“This restructuring is squarely focused on our continued transformation and shift to more cloud and mobile computing," continued Bass

(excessive highlight of the word "more" by me, obviously: not shifting it "all")

[SamHowell]

The relentless pursuit of profit. Even when they make money it's still not enough money and so people lose jobs. I guess that sort of ruthlessness gets you into the top position and keeps you there. Still very sad though when people are tossed aside like that.

As for the cloud, maybe 2-3 years is a little too early but sooner or later we are all going to be using Softimage pay as you go. There will be a little meter in the corner of your monitor telling you how many minutes you have remaining or how much of your bandwidth allocation you have used today. It could be good or it could be bad news for us. Something tells me though that when a company considers 4% growth a failure then it's almost certainly going to be bad.

Just an opinion.

[Rork]

@ Hirazi: I see. But it's a trend that's slowly making its way through the bigger companies, like Adobe.
There are too many 'what ifs'...

Biggest one: what if my internet connection is down? Sorry 'client X', we had no internet today, so all work didn't happen.....

@ Sam: I'm not sure 'pay as you go' will end up being cheaper in the end ;-)

[Hirazi Blue]

@Rork - I didn't want to sound as if I believed it won't ever happen,
I just wanted to place the renewed interest in Carl Bass' original statement into some perspective.

[Bellsey]

Just stepping back for a moment, and putting away the waving finger of 'told you so Autodesk', lets not forget that some people are going to be loosing their jobs, and it's likely that some of those people may not even know yet. So, all in all, not a pleasant situation.

[Bullit]

"The relentless pursuit of profit."

I hope so. It is like being best in what you can do. But for others it can't be...

"4% profit sounds pretty good to me"

First of all revenue is not profit. And besides 4% of profit is good? it barely superior to the fake inflation numbers we have. But if it is so good then unemployed Autodesk and others will have it easy... it seems easy to undercut Autodesk prices.

The hate against profit strikes again. Will have a very bleak future.

[SamHowell]

The hate against profit strikes again. Will have a very bleak future.

By relentless I mean short term, short sighted and self destructive. You can pursue profit as an end in itself or profit can flow from innovation and genuine progress.

Profit is not bad, profit for it's own sake is bad.

And yes, the future is bleak.

[CiaranM]

"The relentless pursuit of profit."
First of all revenue is not profit. And besides 4% of profit is good? it barely superior to the fake inflation numbers we have. But if it is so good then unemployed Autodesk and others will have it easy... it seems easy to undercut Autodesk prices.

Yes I was mistaken, the 4% is revenue increase not profit. And yes in a fair world and rational economy (clearly not the one we live in) that should be plenty growth.

Anyway, best of luck to those about to get stuffed by this!

[Tekano]

and if they never bought Socialcam they would be $10 million up rather than being $50 million down on expected results..?

[Kerro Perro]

Well that's what i was thinking: perhaps they should've been consolidating the massive properties they already had instead of buying out every percieved competitor and promising startup. They wouldn't be the first company that grew too fast and collapsed...

As long as Softimage would survive i'd be dancing on the ashes frankly!

Yes profit it is the base of good bussiness but this mad idea of constant growth really needs to eliminated, how many more recessions do we need before that penny finally drops?

[ActionArt]

It seems all the AD execs can do is buy out others instead of concentrating on actually improving the products they have.

Perhaps they should start by firing the CEO and some top execs. That would probably save the revenue margin they need right there. It never fails to amaze me that somehow many corporations think that one person is 1000 times more important that another (especially the devs doing the work).

Avid did the same silly things, buying up a ton of mediocre companies and not focusing on their core products and now they're selling them all off at a loss just to stay alive. Stupid.

Of course often good products suffer from these stupid decisions and they take cuts to support the bad ones. Not saying this is the case here yet but it happens often (Avid is a good example again).

AD's decision to raise prices in the middle of a recession when everyone else is going the other way struck me as odd. Perhaps this is starting to backfire. The whole mobile thing I think will backfire as well, just my guess.

[Tekano]

Autodesk has lost 15% of its share value as well by end of play Friday, was 22% down at one point but must have gained some by close. Amazing how fickle the markets are and how many peoples livelihoods are affected by the flap of a butterflies wing.

[calmasacow]

@ Hirazi: I see. But it's a trend that's slowly making its way through the bigger companies, like Adobe.
There are too many 'what ifs'...

Biggest one: what if my internet connection is down? Sorry 'client X', we had no internet today, so all work didn't happen.....

@ Sam: I'm not sure 'pay as you go' will end up being cheaper in the end ;-)

Adobe sub will run for about 30 days without internet connection.