[HP]
10-08-2005, 06:18 PM
If you use to be updated on the news of the 3D community, you probably already eard that Autodesk (Developer of 3dsmax) has announce the intention to acquire Alias (Developer of Maya) for $182 million cash.
This might be good news for some people, and bad news for some other people, because from now on Autodesk will own 90% of the 3D apps market on the planet.
Links of interest:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5970886&siteID=123112
http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=3166
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"As far as my opinion about the merger (I've been using Alias for over 10 years, before sgi merged alias and wavefront)... well, it is all about money. You could say greed, but that would imply the notion of 'evil' which would be wrong. When alias was bought from SGI, I think a lot of us were happy that alias was no longer part of a sinking ship... that perhaps the aquisition would yield the innovation that we witnessed in the late 90's. But in the end, it was clearly all about money. Alias was aquired for $150M and a year later sold for $180M. A nice profit for a small handful of investors. You can't fault people for trying to make money I guess. But is it good for the users? Hell no.
The alias/max merger now means that Autodesk has 90% market share. Why even bother innovating at this point? Look at Photoshop. How much has that changed in the last 10 years? Why? No competition.
Things will continue as usual... Maya will continue to -slowly- add features, as will Max. Perhaps they will merge into a new app in a few years. But should we expect ground breaking innovation? No. Just more of the same. I hope I'm wrong, but the whole Autodesk/Alias merger is bad. For everyone. The only innovation we're probably going to see at this point will come from the small players (Pixologic, Softimage, etc). But will they be able to compete? Time will tell. We are definitely witnessing a Microsoft/Apple scenario in the cg world. I wouldn't be surprised if prices for 3D apps begin to rise as a result of this merger. Not to the $50k prices of 7 years ago, but they will probably go up. Autodesk could raise the prices of Maya and Max by 25% and you think everyone will jump ship to XSI? I doubt it.
When Alias and Wavefront merged, they had complementary products, and the end result, Maya, was a good thing. But what do maya and max really bring to the table to warrant a merger of their technologies, with the costs involved in doing such a thing? They are too similar to spend the r&D money to merge, especially with minimal competition.
Strange times.
-Alex"
(* taken from a thread on CGTalk)
This might be good news for some people, and bad news for some other people, because from now on Autodesk will own 90% of the 3D apps market on the planet.
Links of interest:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5970886&siteID=123112
http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=3166
-----------
"As far as my opinion about the merger (I've been using Alias for over 10 years, before sgi merged alias and wavefront)... well, it is all about money. You could say greed, but that would imply the notion of 'evil' which would be wrong. When alias was bought from SGI, I think a lot of us were happy that alias was no longer part of a sinking ship... that perhaps the aquisition would yield the innovation that we witnessed in the late 90's. But in the end, it was clearly all about money. Alias was aquired for $150M and a year later sold for $180M. A nice profit for a small handful of investors. You can't fault people for trying to make money I guess. But is it good for the users? Hell no.
The alias/max merger now means that Autodesk has 90% market share. Why even bother innovating at this point? Look at Photoshop. How much has that changed in the last 10 years? Why? No competition.
Things will continue as usual... Maya will continue to -slowly- add features, as will Max. Perhaps they will merge into a new app in a few years. But should we expect ground breaking innovation? No. Just more of the same. I hope I'm wrong, but the whole Autodesk/Alias merger is bad. For everyone. The only innovation we're probably going to see at this point will come from the small players (Pixologic, Softimage, etc). But will they be able to compete? Time will tell. We are definitely witnessing a Microsoft/Apple scenario in the cg world. I wouldn't be surprised if prices for 3D apps begin to rise as a result of this merger. Not to the $50k prices of 7 years ago, but they will probably go up. Autodesk could raise the prices of Maya and Max by 25% and you think everyone will jump ship to XSI? I doubt it.
When Alias and Wavefront merged, they had complementary products, and the end result, Maya, was a good thing. But what do maya and max really bring to the table to warrant a merger of their technologies, with the costs involved in doing such a thing? They are too similar to spend the r&D money to merge, especially with minimal competition.
Strange times.
-Alex"
(* taken from a thread on CGTalk)