Autodesk is a channel sales business. It doesn't sell software direct (except for things like e-store), instead using a network or distributors and resellers. This model has been used for years, although it will be interesting to see how Autodesk and similar companies may adapt or change with things in prevailing aspects such as the cloud.

Do you have hard numbers on that or is this a guess?

Doubtfully its a guess coming from AD

We don't mention specific numbers in terms of market share/size and numbers of seats etc. In fact I believe we're actually allowed to.

What he said sounded like a completely unrealistic guess, that's why I asked whether he has actual numbers (no need to mention them).

Wikipedia keeps very accurate statistics on page views. The following is a chart for page views of the articles on "Autodesk Maya" and "Autodesk Softimage" between January 2010 and February 2012.
Something like Lagoa causes a temporary jump in interest, adding noise to the chart. However, the overall trend line is very clear.


http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Autodesk_Softimage
http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Autodesk_Maya

What I wrote is not a guess. Many of us were impressed by the scale and success of Autodesk when we joined! In our minds, we thought the CG market was much smaller than it actually is.

I don't think it's healthy to nurture a distorted view of Autodesk' success, because then nothing make sense and of course people will continue to get frustrated and angry! "Why isn't Softimage on the front page of Autodesk, why aren't there any books about it, why are there few schools teaching it, why are there so few plug-ins, why is it being sold in a suite - what's this "companion" thing? why hasn't my friend ever heard about Softimage?", etc.

It's not that there is a plot to hide Softimage, it's just reflective of the small market. It was that way in the Avid days, and before that. There is nothing wrong with being a small market; Houdini, Modo, Lightwave, even discreet products, have small markets, people are happy, life goes on. Just as long as you get what you need, you're golden. Autodesk remains committed to developing Softimage, and the product is profitable. It's safe to continue to use it and add more seats. If anything the support is better in small user base -- just look at all the interaction Stephen does and the quality of the XSI mailing list.

This may be a little offtopic but I'm a little curious, in Autodesk USA store Softimage electronic version is $2999. I was a little pissed off because we pay more than twice $7100 that and the subscription is about $2700 and Maya is $6600. Well software in Japan has been always outrageously expensive, not only Autodesk.

Since it is so cheap, I was thinking to make my next purchase in Autodesk USA Online Store. But why nobody is doing that? then I googled a little and found an Autodesk webpage where it said that it was illegal to use a software outside of the country where you purchased it. Maybe I would be able to do the purchase because some IP restriction I don't know, but in the case I could, would be my purchase "in Japan"? or paying $3000 would be as illegal as using a torrent downloaded version. I'll wait until Softimage 2013 is released to give it a try.

Anyway, like I said, Softimage is big in Japan game industry, but still it's no rival to Maya. At work, Maya users get surprised at how convenient and easy is to work in Softimage, but non of them had ever tried to change their main tool. And no one will. Some of them had used a little Softimage in some projects but still, they go back to Maya. They prefer to do the same thing in Maya even if it takes them more time because changing their workflow and learn a new software may be a little difficult. I don't get it but it seems to be the average user logic.

We know that Softimage is not at the same level than Maya and Max (in sales) in the past 10 or more years, but it will never be if Autodesk doesn't even try to sell it. Software development is't cheap so I hope they don't decide to stop Softimage development because of their low sells, at least not until they make Maya a little more usable.

What myara said there is unsurprising. So even in Japan, where soft is very strong, industry has a tool it got used to, build its pipelines on top of and thats it, work goes on. Obviously, you shouldn't expect this to change. In my mind though, a product's success is highly dependent on its market growth. I shouldn't say "in my mind", its just a basic principle of economics.

As luceric pointed out, mayas growth is abnormal in comparison to xsi's. Why is this? Same company. Same development cycles. Features edge on maya side, but the quality suffers - opposite is true for xsi. I'm asking "why" because i genuinely dont know. History? Schools? Better API? Maybe. In my opinion, it's good marketing. I say this because i am very familiar with maya and, although i cant claim i know what goes on in bigger studios, for the regular human beings, it just couldn't be less fit. Yet, it grows rapidly... But sideline it for a year - present it as a max plugin for a while - and see what happens.

Its a hypothetical situation. Obviously, no sane person would think of doing that.

Absolutely! In many ways for the users it's better. Good to hear SI is doing well and progress continues, that's all that matters.

Having a huge market share doesn't seem to make the product any better or progress any faster, just look at Max and Maya

I'd say, stop worrying, fire it up and produce something that gets everyone's attention.

If you look back, the best software almost never has the most market share. There are so many other factors. Marketing, features needed at the time, high profile projects, economics etc. Look at AutoCAD for example. Worst CAD interface ever in the 1980's. But it could do certain things that companies needed and it had good backing so look at it now. Same with DOS, Windows, Word etc. etc. None of those were the best or even close, they just got traction at the right time and inertia is a powerful thing.

For 3D software, it's a huge deal for a major studio to change, so it's usually easier not to. Simple.