Autodesk going all rental?

[Hirazi Blue]

IMHO a company, that drops a bombshell like this on its customers, should immediately have the details up and ready. The nature of bombshells like this is that people crave information (or are lost forever).

[luceric]

Autodesk doesn't know the details yet, it just announced its intentions to move to a new all-rental business model in the coming years and that they're starting to work out the details on that. All the big companies do this, they plant the seed, gather the reactions, tweak things, etc. Can't have a discussion without talking.

[Hirazi Blue]

But the stated time-frame (12 to 24 months, if I'm not mistaken) doesn't seem to leave too much room for discussion, I'm afraid.
And looking at the claims apparently made at the aforementioned webinar one gets the impression that the information is already "out there", it just has not reached the customer yet. This impression might just as well be wrong (although it would be interesting to find out what the webinar based its claims on), but still...

[talent103]

Yes. the future is always bright at autodesk.

[FXDude]

1st shot across the bow of the ship for max.

Wouldn't wish that to anyone (in this case, lots and lots of of users)

[talent103]

I Agree 100%. The Smilles avatar is more of an "I told you so" rather than I am happy about it possibly happening. I actually dont think it will happen any time soon if at all. But then I thought the same about SI when we were told the future was bright.

[Shredder565]

I Agree 100%. The Smilles avatar is more of an "I told you so" rather than I am happy about it possibly happening. I actually dont think it will happen any time soon if at all. But then I thought the same about SI when we were told the future was bright.

in a reply about softimage one day, it's clear to me that their priority now is maya.

I would not be surprised to see max gone within a year. what a way to kill innovation. I was able to figure out Max, but never got beyond modeling in it. I not only figured out modeling, but animation and very light effects with softimage..... all on my own to boot. that's saying something.

I couldn't make head or tales out of the confusing layout of Maya, and only able to figure out how to make objects. I gave up soon after that and stuck out with what was good.

Maybe a new start up company can kick start the funds to snatch xsi and max away and really make them special again.

Buy outs are never a good thing, and this is just another example of that rule..

[FXDude]

.. if you feel 3ds max has failed to deliver anything worth while.

Though I hope that would simply be some relative disdain (of some) for one of the companies own child product,
that does feel/sound very reminiscent of Softimage minimization/discrimination whenever it was mentionned
(as a side particle system accessory or whatnot.. again, whenever it was mentionned)


And I also agree that a 'told you so' smiley would be great,
which would surely be used more often than say these ones ..

[FXDude]

Autodesk doesn't know the details yet, it just announced its intentions to move to a new all-rental business model in the coming years and that they're starting to work out the details on that. All the big companies do this, they plant the seed, gather the reactions, tweak things, etc. Can't have a discussion without talking.

Doesn't know the details of it's (already set and firm) intentions to move to an all-rental business model in the coming years and starting to work out the details.
(regardless of sentiment/potential side effects in the name of profitability maximization)

Planting the seed about exclusively distributing terminator seeds,
gather the quite expectantly, overwhelmingly predominant negative reactions, tweak the chocolate coating(the narrative and/or introductory 'deals'), then go ahead anyway.

Can't take advantage of a monopoly status without essentially working against most of everyone.

Indeed, pretty-much all the big(gest) companies do this (sort of thing)
(how they got so big in the first place)

[mirkoj]

"Can't have a discussion without talking."


Yea, AD discuss and talk before making moves that affect lives of people...

[Hirazi Blue]

And I also agree that a 'told you so' smiley would be great,
which would surely be used more often than say these ones ..

I always thought made for a great "I told you so" smiley
and before you start "knocking" the lesser well-used smilies
I dare you to take a look under "View more smilies".
I bet you didn't know about these, for instance:


(there's even an American flag).

;)

[azurecgi]

I think what Autodesk are missing here is the fact that Adobe got away with forcing their users to a rental-only model because they have very niche products with little competition. After Effects for example, there just isn't a competing product out there for motion graphics and compositing.

3D software is different as they all do basically the same thing in slightly different ways. So, if Autodesk piss their users off too much, yes it sucks having to re-train on new software, but there are non-Autodesk alternatives and you'll still be able to produce good quality work.

What I find funny is that the only really niche piece of 3D software Autodesk own, they've decided to EOL!

[jamination]

I don't necessarily think that is true, I think autodesk has successfully created a monopoly (probably own 80% or more of the business), and they are well aware of that fact, as can be seen by the way they treat their customers (killing of soft, 1st forcing subscription on users, pretty soon forcing rental), their is very little respect for the customer, something you would see where their is healthy competition. from the opposite end look at how luxology/foundry goes out of their way to try to get your business, because they are trying to pry business away from Autodesk. Autodesk is so entrenched as the standard it will take years and years of this anti-consumer activity before that will change. It is wishful thinking on the part of all of us "dissed" users that something will change in the short run. Look at how great of a program Softimage was before that acquisition, and it changed nothing.

[Hirazi Blue]

True, but a near-monopoly obviously isn't a monopoly at all. And that means that competing companies might still gain some benefit from adopting different strategies from the ones Autodesk uses and this gain might even be rather significant from their POV. For instance by keeping perpetual licenses on the table as a choice. Without that specific otherness it will be much harder for them to grow any further and in the long run even survive I think. They shouldn't only rely on the otherness of their product, but also on the otherness of their policies.

[jamination]

please don't get me wrong, I agree 100%, I am very skeptical of change at this point, but would welcome it above all. and yes you are correct, they are not a full monopoly say like adobe.

[angus_davidson]

Monopolies end because of various factors, unsatisfaction with product is very high on that list, lack of trust with the company, better alternatives, cheaper alternatives etc being a few

Apple for example gained massive market share very quickly with final cut pro. (due to it being what the people wanted at a very good price) and then lost it just as quickly by then releasing FCP X which wasnt what people wanted. The very long delay on the Mac pro update also helped that massive drop as the two are tied closely together .

Adobe at the moment is doing themsleves no favours. Their CC upgrades are breaking production pipelines all over the place , not to mention how difficult it has made enterprise licensing. The only reason they are still doing well is because the have bulk agreements that have 3-5 year deals in place. Soon as those start ending in 2016-2017 they have a massive problem. They have also removed the need to go through a reseller which is causing huge frictions with the very people responsible for their success. Also programs like Ormer, Krita even the gimp provide reasonable options. People are also realising that the mantra of only using Industry Standard tools is just wrong.

With the economies being how they are (pretty much crap) people need the following,

stability of product
dependability of product
cost effectiveness of product
decent workflow within product

All areas where Softimage excels and currently where Maya is lacking. Maya does have a massvie entrenchemnt of market share , however that is based on historical and marketing reasons and the fact that people have massive investment in modifying it to make it useful. That can and will change when certain tipping points are reached. Those are closer then people think. Autodesk continually throwing new tech at maya without fixing the underlying problems can only hold the line for so long.

The one area that Autodesk has got right is its education policies. They have made it incredibly easy for both institutions and students to gain access to their products for zero cost. As I have tried to explain to various non autodesk companies, ine EDU zero cost always beats any other cost. Companies that embrace are going to reap the rewards down the line. Even ex giants like Pixar are realising that its the way to try and regain market share that they lost to renderers like Arnold.

All in all its going to be an exciting next 2-3 years and when its done the landscape will be very different. Mostly people will understand that putting investors above the people that pay for and use your software is a very dangerous move.