Autodesk has announced that they will discontinue upgrade sales as of February, 2015, as they move to focus revenue on subscriptions and rentals of their software. It was also announced that Autodesk will be laying off 100 employees, and closing several facilities in under-performing markets like Southern Europe. The full article can be read at GFXspeak.com.
Discontinuing upgrade sales & layoffs at Autodesk
Related Posts
CGPress is an independent news website built by and for CG artists. With more than 15 years in the business, we are one of the longest-running CG news organizations in the world. Our news reporting has gathered a reputation for credibility, independent coverage and focus on quality journalism. Our feature articles are known for their in-depth analyses and impact on the CG scene. “5 out of 5 artists recommend it.”
“…The full article can be read at AWN.com…”
Or the essential infos since a week ago already here on Max Underground 😉
http://www.maxunderground.com/archives/19787_autodesk_to_invest_in_deviantart.html
forgot to add to look in the comment section under the above link
“The plan is to shift customers away from single product purchases toward suites”
This annoys me more than I can say. I don’t want a suite. I just want Max. If it comes to having to spend a lot more money on suites, I will be forced to look elsewhere.
I don’t really know what they realistically have as suites for ME users.
They screwed up twice with their compositing apps, and Mudbox and SI seem to be stagnant.
I’m guessing this is more aimed at the architects – shifting ME users towards suites is not going to entice me.
Adobe and Autodesk seem to be locked in a battle to alienate long-term users of their products.
The thing is, Adobe really offers a lot in its CC package, having access to so many good apps makes it a lot easier to make a decision.
It may do, but it’s still only access as long as you keep paying a monthly fee – for someone who’s already stumped up for the full CS6 package, it does not appeal to me, I just think the rental model is fundamentally a bad deal for the user long-term.
How is this a bad thing?
Lets be honest for a moment. All the major adsk 3D applications have essentially stood still for pretty much 5+(i’d dare to say 10) years. Maya’s all about the API and allows any bigger studio with R&D to extend it to fit their needs. For the rest of us, all the innovation is driven by 3rd party and their acquisition (cat, vray, lagoa*, naiad; cebas and thinkbox products ect).
If you look at products like FABRICS creation slice, you really start to understand how elegant and incredibly fast things should be at this given time/age. Instead with ADSK we get 3 bloated, singlethreaded softwares with outdated, unfinished features; while even the most basic things are neglected for years and instead we’re told to use all 3 softwares, 2x more time and resource, to accomplish a very basic task.
Unlike a smaller, fit company with a product that is their bread and butter, ADSK does need to spend much money on dev to stay 1 step ahead and keep their customers satisfied. After all, what’s that you’re gonna do?- Change to maya? Still giving your money to adsk and realizing that you are far less productive(no instant rigging(cat/bip), destructive history/ no modifiers(sym,shell, even noise), uv tools are weak, no unlimited rendering license etc).
—
Right now what autodesk is saying is – we found even more ways to extract your money while making you more dependent on us. After all that’s good business and happy shareholders. Same time it is 1 less cost efficient choice for customers who are generally unhappy about state of the product(s).
Perhaps this is not a bad thing, because all of this is further breaking the grip of monopoly by adsk and giving a better chance for competition.
After 15 years of max/maya(10+) and after years of dismissal, I had a chance to work with C4D a bit and found the experience to be amazing ( alembic, xpresso, modern ui, amazing character tools, awesome/working/fast curve editor, sculpt, python, ipr etc) = incredibly fast and streamlined workflow. I can fully see myself using this solution to meet fast deadlines in high quality while for anything more complex you have houdini which will play well with alembic. The same can be said about modo and even blender.
The point is that there are very good alternatives out there that do not cost an arm and a leg. These studios care more for innovation, their customer feedback rather than trying to find a way to squeeze every last penny from their customers. Maybe it’s time to explore them?
From a consumer standpoint – particularly Media/Entertainment consumers, this is a horrible move, limiting options, forcing bundling – – just because you call it a “suite” doesn’t mean it tastes delicious….it’s a bundle, and now it’s a bundle you are FORCED to buy if you want to keep the product you’ve been using.
From a business standpoint it remains to be seen whether or not this is wise. But they are announcing this at the same time as a hundred or more layoffs while leaving executive leadership in place, so I’m not really confident they have any clue about the proper business model other than “Follow Adobe!!” – – brilliant, and that’s why Bass gets the big bucks…how much would AD pay me to just announce that I really dig cloud tech, and I plan to copy Adobe?
But there is definitely one potentially huge business downside to this for AD, and it’s what David displayed above – – any shakeup like this may not cause everyone to LEAVE, but it may cause a lot more people to start LOOKING…one of the worst things you can do is take loyal consumers and give them a reason to check out the competition. Most of those who have not already looked now have a HUGE incentive to shop now.
In all honesty for me nothing has really change in 7+ years (actually a bit worse and slower, it does look better in the viewport!), unless there is some fundamental explosion in speed/workflow that I can’t live without the tools I am using now will last another ten years easy.
At this point in time, with the current state of affairs and the way things are headed, after 2015 and my 3 year sub expires… not that I want too, I could easily drop out an not think twice about it.
I really hope the persons making these decisions truly think about there future in a way less survival driven. Because that is what all of this is survival, it certainly ain’t progressive.
I’ve finally had enough of AD this year. I was using 3ds since its DOS version 4. I paid happily for every upgrade until maybe max9 or so. After that? Not so much. I haven’t even touched the last three versions apart from checking them out briefly. UI gets worse and worse every year and there is little to no value added. I’m still using max 2011 for everything and I don’t see any reason to change that.
So, farewell Autodesk. As much as everyone I can understand that they want to make as much money as possible. But being an AD customer feels like being an complete idiot for years now. Charging money for essentially nothing is not what I would call doing business in a respectable way.