Adobe to purchase The Foundry?
Apr 26, 2015 by Joel LeLievre
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It would appear that Adobe, the makers of Photoshop and After Effects, are looking to make a £200m bid for The Foundry, makers of Nuke, Mari, and Modo. The Carlyle Group which are private equity owners, put The Foundry up for sale late last year and since then there has been much speculation as to who might try to pick it up. More details will be posted here when, and if they become available, but in the meantime, you can read the latest news story via The TelegraphUK website.
🙁 Subscription only here we come. There was really no good outcome once they announced they were for sale.
I’m glad I am happy using Fusion. Not sure what kind of developments we’ll see in Fusion since it’s now a free product tho, so longevity is an issue.
Sad for Modo users, and I do like Mari a lot so I wonder what will happen there. It’s one of the few 3D paint programs supporting Ptex.
Sad News 🙁
if adobe purchase foundry , i will switch to fusion … :(((((
Why don’t Adobe rent The Foundry instead of acquiring it? Isn’t that such a good business model? Or is just a good model to drain money from customers even when there is practically no evolution in the software?
Cheers.
🙂 exactly
love this comment.
Brilliant!
Yes!
Oh, c’mon, you can’t read this seriously:
“The company has RECENTLY launched a concept design software product called Modo”
yeh..the quality of company/story research over at the Sunday Telegraph is not good!
there’s also NO quoted Adobe source to this “story”…maybe they are just window shopping and just because they might be interested doesn’t then naturally follow they will have the winning bid…or that they will EVER place a bid.
Yeah, saying they “recently launched” modo, when modo was Luxology’s long before the Foundry bought them, speaks volumes about the reliability of the story.
Not that I think Adobe isn’t interested, it’s just that we should probably put our monocles back on our faces and wait for confirmation from the Creative Cloud Cuckoo Landers.
Please…. no Autodesk… please God…
true or not, where there is smoke there is fire.
this actually almost makes me go grab mari before its too late.
I REALLY HOPE that’s a joke !!!!
http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
Am I the only one who don’t mind Adobe? 🙂
I’m going to take the wait and see approach here, see what they do with the suite if this pans out to be true.
Could be worse, could be AD.. That company should not be allowed to swallow another 3D company ever again..
seriously? Can you say anti-trust monopoly. BS
I hope Modo’s fate will not be as Softimage’s…
Why does everyone whine about Autodesk, Adobe and even Apple? Seriously, blame Foundry. Blame Luxology. They are the ones who knowingly let an investment firm buy into their company. They knew that there was a REAL possibility it would end this way. Investment firms buy and sell companies all the time.
Again, why whine about Autodesk, Adobe and even Apple? You can’t blame them for buying a company with chump change. For people trying to bring up Softimage, and Autodesk killing it, the writing was on the wall years ago. Softimage was bought and sold for years by different companies. Autodesk bought them at a bargain basement price. Foundry/Luxology sold at the list price would be a steal too. Modo doesn’t have a large user base, but Adobe could benefit from having a 3D app. Nuke/Premiere bridge, works. As for Autodesk, Mari tech inside of Mudbox, works. Or bring Mudbox sculpting inside Mari. Works. Autodesk Nuke, makes more sense than Adobe. Autodesk Modo? Not worth it. Modo doesn’t have enough users to keep it around. Plain and simple.
People whine about the buyers but no one ever thinks about the seller and how they sold out. Blame Luxology and Foundry for selling out years ago. A cash infusion from an investment firm is still never a good idea because this always happens.. selling off and selling out. Blame them.
If Autodesk did not acquired Softimage it would have been dead way before Autodesk stopped the development last year.
I wouldn’t mind if adobe bought them if that means Nuke automatically gets installed on the next CC update! /hides under desk 🙂
The Foundry is actually making the futures software that Adobe cannot make. They can’t even make their own software right, and will certainly turn the Foundry products to garbage. The Foundry is worth way more than 200M as well. Adobe fears their future, and therefore, has to purchase it.
The Foundry worth more than 200M pound, that is over 300M US? Autodesk paid 152M US for Alias and that was at a time where companies were paying big money. If Adobe pays over 300M US for The Foundry, Carlyle is doing a very good deal…
It’s a good way of extending the subscription model. Buy competing companies who offer permanent licenses and change them to subscription. Adding new software to the CC gives good reason to increase the subscription price too. Now who’s left… let’s see… C4D, Houdini, Blender.
My only problem with Autodesk and Adobe is that they go for the rent-only business model, wich I think it’s a bit a scam, check the new features since CC to CC2015… something that you can really say it’s NEW or a great awesome awaited feature?
Cheers.
you’re welcome to rental..literally
Somebody above wrote Foundry is worth more then 200Mil.
Foundry is, as future operational force, worth nothing. If it would be greatly profitable and had prospect, an clever financial manager would never sell it. At this point, we are all the same opinion, i am quite sure.
Those of you here who have a company and have studied for years economy, just as I am and did, you remember for sure the cross diagram called BCG MATRIX, with funny names like “Stars” “Dog” “?” or “Milking Cow”.
Now – with a little intelligence you can come to the conclusion in which Stage of this BCG Matrix is Foundry positioned at the moment of the sale. 🙂
If you don’t want to think, here is a short help:
– Foundry does not grow anymore nor it will in the future. It has reached the zenith. It is the best time to sell it, and they do it like it stands in the book. Totally correct and efficient.
– Foundry can not sell more licenses, the market is full: those who needed Nuke, they have already bought it. The rest gets Indie, cracked or Fusion. Btw – who pays $6000,- plus exorbitant subscriptions for something your competition is giving for free or 199$ Freelancer Kit.
– The whole income comes from subscriptions, which must cover the costs of the increasing support – remember, you do not sell more licenses, but you must support all those studios and customers you have in your database.
– Since your only income relays on yearly subscribers, you have limited resources to feed both the facilities, management, support stuff and programmers. Your software gets by each release less and less interesting features. And those Hedge-Fond guys suck blood too, they are Shareholders.
– The main money from the golden days, as dozens of licenses were sold per day, is spent. You remember those guys, who have bought Foundry? There was very likely a contract with a big noose. I remember having such contracts on my table – they buy you out, but the your triple income of the next years has to be payed back. Or worse.
And so on – these were the facts. Now my opinion:
– different from SoftImage, where the buyer could draw some interesting source code and patent licenses, i don’t know what a buyer should do with Nuke or Modo. You have already Natron Clone, the code is OpenSource. I am not sure about patents and value of Modo, since it is a kind of derivative from Lightwave; there is no braking new technology in it so far, worth 200 Millions Dollar. Do not forget – the buyer does not pay 200M for Foundry, he pays 200M PLUS monthly salaries and all other costs from that moment on.
This is just my factual observation of the economic situation of the Company Foundry (If i may be bold to say, i believe AD is with 3DSMax in the similar position).
The whole stuff may be very controversial, and i try to avoid any biased opinion about Foundry or any other company. My Focus lies on the economic aspect of the company growth and current sale situation.
If I have missed something or made a mistake, i would be glad if someone would correct me or add more facts. My study days are already some dozens of years in the past 🙂
thanks
Hmm, you are mostly correct when it comes to High End VFX work, but there’s a lot more growth opportunities with VR/AR, Games, and Motion Graphics, visualization, product design.
When Fusion is free, why would you want to spend $4,000 for Nuke?
For VR/AR, Games, and Motion Graphics, visualization, product design, Fusion can do anything Nuke can do.
@ Thomas
Yes, i thought of it too, yet i miss the argument why to purchase $ 6000,- software when the less complicated, un-demanding gfx jobs for product design or VR/AR can be done with practically any other free or low-cost comp solution (to mix few layers or comp projection paintings you do not need the Godzilla-Solution, you can do it with Natron, Fusion, AE etc…). Small VR and Design Teams has less capital to invest in sw then large VFX facilities, they will very likely search for cheaper solutions. In one or the other way, Foundry expansion horizon has become very short.
I think when we break it down, the questions is what is the main technological advantage of let say Nuke compared to other, and the cost justification. And we can project this question to few other software on the market.
It is a very interesting subject, i feel almost intrigued about the future developments of the GFX/VFX software!
thanks for comments
It is always the same.
If they (Autodesk, The Foundry, etc.) began lowering prices (Indie licenses) more people would buy it!! The markets still have way to go before they’re saturated. Hell yes, I would buy 3ds max if it only were at a comparable price in Europe, but instead I am asked to pay almost double. Let alone Autodesk indie pricing. Let alone buying an used license.
But it is always the same…GREED and COMPLACENCY!
Allegorithmic, Sidefx, Pixologic, McNeel, Pilgway, Luxology, Isotropix, (Blender) etc. – they do it right, that’s where my money went and will go to in the future.
As far as I am concerned Autodesk and Adobe can go to hell
and while we’re on it the Carlyle Group as well.
Adobe would buy The Foundry for a very good reason : it could be their worst competition in the years to come.
The Foundry could easily make the next Photoshop, they have the tech : Nuke, Mischief, Modo etc… Plus they have the Sculptris guy (ex Zbrush) working on a new sculpting app with the Mischief tech, it could be big.
About 3D, of course the market is not saturated, the world population is growing, internet users as well. More and more kids are growing learning these technologies. The market is going to be huge, probably bigger than we think.
Adobe just bought a photography website for 800 millions, buying The Foundry for 200 millions makes lots of sense. It would be a very smart move.
If I were Adobe I would secure the deal asap.
As usual, everything ends by belonging to a few supergiant companies that only care about their shareholders.
Where are the laws about monopoles and abuse of dominant position ?