The announcement of the new Max and Maya premium suites (which include Softimage and Lagoa) together with the relatively low profile of Softimage in the Autodesk marketing materials have caused a bit of a stir in the community.

Chinny (the Softimage product manager) posted this message to address the community’s concerns:

From: softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jason Brynford-Jones
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 11:13 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: A Softimage message

I thought the last time I wrote something like this, would be the last time.

I am beginning to sound like a broken record; a record no-one obviously likes listening to. So perhaps this really is the last time I will play this message as it seems to make no difference.

Marketing
It seems now the Softimage community is only focusing on Autodesk’s marketing as the barometer for Soft’s future. Not “no marketing” but “less marketing” than 3ds Max and Maya. Or that the new Max and Maya products WITH Softimage means no more Softimage? This does not make sense.

New Max and Maya Suites
From all our interviews Max and Maya customers want Softimage (not just ICE, but ICE is often a big reason) in their toolsets. At an affordable price, that interops well. OK let’s give it to them, in the way they want it.

There are many more Max and Maya customers than Softimage. Having product suites branded with the name 3ds Max or Maya are obviously targeted at selling to them. This represents a massive potential for Softimage. You might not agree with the naming, but you can’t argue the logic.

Softimage as a standalone product is of course continuing as before (with some very exciting stuff in the works) and having the standalone product available to all Max and Maya users is a huge endorsement of Softimage and commitment by Autodesk..

Development
Since the acquisition there has been repeated fear-mongering about Soft’s future. Even though in that time, we have had two major releases (3 in the last two years) and one minor (check what others have done in this time) and of course there is more to come.

Even though we have exceeded revenue expectations, even though we are expanding our development. Even though fundamentally NOTHING HAS CHANGED, people choose to focus simply on a lack of marketing and not Autodesk Softimage’s track record.

We still manage our own roadmap, with the exception of working well with other Autodesk apps. Something everyone has asked for repeatedly, especially ICE interop.

Our philosophy will continue around ICE as the architecture on which to build – that includes one day moving into modeling. We have not abandoned other parts of the Software (see the list at the end of this mail) far from it – we have a very well defined focus and future.

Final thoughts – for this is the last time I will do this.

If you take one thing away from this mail, it is this.

The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click
The future of Softimage is bright… click

It really is…

Chinny

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