Open Letter To Carl Bass, President and CEO of Autodesk

[luceric]

Luc-Eric,
do you think Softimage, would it have been owned by any separate company as their sole flagship product, could have been maintained cost-effectively, including the initial investment?

if someone else had bought it as their "flagship" app, I assume they would have a business plan and would have figured this all out to make it work. It would end up costing a lot more than 35 mil$. There would have been a few mil$ per year of salary/other costs, perhaps around 5 mil$ assuming similar layoffs as Avid did to sell. If you just go by my numbers, you would have spent 35+5*5=60$ millions by now. You know the whole of M&E, with Maya, Flame and all the other products, makes 200$mil/year so it's not looking so good if the user base is 1/10ths of Maya. I'm sure someone could have figured it out, but probably the team would be doing other things than just continuing the app as is. If Avid would have *given* away softimage to a new owner for free... (example: make a spin off) they'd have been in good shape.

[Superpositivo]

So, if the Softimage VS Maya is 1/20, as mr. Carl Bass wrote (assuming was really him, in the letter, as I think not) what happened in only 1 year, at the community and customers of Softimage, since AD said about 1 year ago without any doubt "we won't end Softimage & 3DsMax, we will continue to develop, etc etc.."???????

Numbers were different? Somebody here want me to that believe before it was something like 3..5/20 and now, suddenly 1???

Please...

[Pancho]

Even if it were only 1/50th of the Maya users. That doesn't say anything about the absolut numbers and how much income SI generates each year and how much exprenses they have for the development team. 1.000 licenses for 1.000$ subscription each + new sales that's easily 1.000.000$ each year. Putting a five men development crew onto it should be around 500.000$. THis would still end in a profit of around 500.000$.

So what?! No reason to quit it.

[Rez007]

Define "a lot". Some north american clients have more than one thousand seats of Maya. Yes the proportions have always been a factor of ten like that

Is there a chance that the numbers are skewed like that because you needed like 10 TDs to actually do something in Maya, that you could have done with maybe 1 of Softimage?

If Maya has so many users and is generating a ton of income, then why aren't there more "grand" advancements made in development? (sans release 2015 because we don't really know how users will like it, and to be fair, it is looking better than previous releases). However, year after year, a lot of users have complained about past releases, and I would think with that much money, it would have blown the doors off of everyone else by now. I think that Autodesk makes more money per year by having incomplete software just to generate more sales, because you need more people to do something - there is truth to that, as that is how some companies operate. They probably save the rest of the money, that is not used in Maya development, to buy their next purchase like an asset store...

If Dassault Systems would have bought Softimage instead of Autodesk, things might be totally different right now.

[luceric]

Even if it were only 1/50th of the Maya users. That doesn't say anything about the absolut numbers and how much income SI generates each year and how much exprenses they have for the development team. 1.000 licenses for 1.000$ subscription each + new sales that's easily 1.000.000$ each year. Putting a five men development crew onto it should be around 500.000$. THis would still end in a profit of around 500.000$.

Five people? what a miserable situation that would be. just updating the splash screen and doing a few fixes here and there. Anyway, that's rather close to what you will get the for the next two years : just life support.

don't spend too much more of your time trying to figure out the numbers; Autodesk said they are phasing out softimage because they don't want to have 3 apps that do the same thing. the small user base and other stuff is just "interesting facts", it doesn't change anything. They did not end it to save money, no one has gotten layed off.

[azurecgi]

Anyway, that's rather close to what you will get the for the next two years : just life support.

Some would argue that's pretty much what we've had the past 5 years

Autodesk said they are phasing out softimage because they don't want to have 3 apps that do the same thing.

So, as suspected, they bought it to kill it! But Autodesk thought they'd just milk the users for a few years first?

If that really is the main reason, then why have two apps that do the same thing? Look out 3DS Max users, especially if you start being told the 'future is bright'!

[grendizer]

Perhaps you're right Luc Eric but still I am upset because I am sure things could have turned out in a different way if it wasn't Autodesk and its negligence

[aaronkent]

Hey there Carl!
You're a guy from the fifties so I imagine you have some memory of the ideals and ethics our parents and grandparents held. With that in mind I find it very dis-heartening that you don't actually say "sorry" in your response. I'm not begrudging you or Marc Petit or whoever the hell runs Autodesk now the business decisions you find it necessary and / or wise to make. You guys excel at putting on a buttoned shirt and being very enthusiastic about whatever is currently a)technological and b) making a profit. I've found myself so angry at you guys for EOLing my software package the last couple weeks that my chest hurts a bit and I realize I just need to let this all go and move on to other productive things. As yourself and other high profile people at Autodesk have reaped FORTUNES over the years from the buying of intellectual property I think it's only fair that you guys should bear the brunt of the scorn. So take a moment away from your sculpture projects, family and personal activities to offer those of us who are in the digital trenches an apology. I'm a grown up and realize the business realities of the present. I think it would just ease the sting a bit if you offered the userbase an apology as opposed to a canned letter.

Cheers
Aaron Kent

[Hirazi Blue]

Indeed! Very well-expressed!
Getting an actual apology out of Autodesk might involve hell having to freeze over, but that's beside the point...

[iamVFX]

Reading Carl's twitter it seems he cares more about industrial design

[Bullit]

I wonder why people care about an apology. It means nothing.

[rray]

Haha I'm sure this went... "Hey Carl, someone's written an open letter for you, here's something I wrote for you that you can copy+paste for them as a reply"

This didn't sound anything like a 56 year old dude.

[Bellsey]

Haha I'm sure this went... "Hey Carl, someone's written an open letter for you, here's something I wrote for you that you can copy+paste for them as a reply"

This didn't sound anything like a 56 year old dude.

Interesting comment, what's a 56 year old guy supposed to sound like then?

[rray]

obviously just intuition.. my radar might be off but this didn't strike me as being written by a guy that age.. at all

[Bullit]

The letter lacks personality. A 56 yrs person have idiosyncrasies.

[ActionArt]

Reading Carl's twitter it seems he cares more about industrial design

He cares that he makes as much as about 1000 vfx artists put together. That's about all.

Shame on Avid as well for selling to this monster.