Back in early 2002, Softimage introduced a new family of processing and rendering products: BatchUniversal, Batch, and mental ray standalone. The pricing, from today’s viewpoint, seems awfully high:

• BatchUniversal is available in volume at prices as low as $2,750 US MSRP, for dual processors.
• mental ray v.3.0 stand-alone licenses are available in volume for as low as $950 US MSRP per processor.
• SOFTIMAGE|XSI Batch v.2.0 is available for order now with scheduled shipment in March 2002, and will be offered at volume prices as low as $1,495 US MSRP, for dual processors.

Here’s a screen capture of softimage.com from Feb 2002: