Autodesk re-structuring and slashing 1,200 jobs
polycounter lvl 8
Max is dying!
Seriously though, I thought this statement from the new CEO is very interesting:
“Right now we are in the bottom of our transition to subscription,” he said, where revenue will decline and bottom out before it moves back up. Revenue should start to increase in 2019"
This move seems to be a direct consequence of the transition to a subscription model for their products. I don't have enough business-savyness to figure if his statement about revenue bouncing back up in 2019 is anything more than PR bs - it's from earning call after all. But I'm interested in hearing what other Polycounters think about it.
Seriously though, I thought this statement from the new CEO is very interesting:
“Right now we are in the bottom of our transition to subscription,” he said, where revenue will decline and bottom out before it moves back up. Revenue should start to increase in 2019"
This move seems to be a direct consequence of the transition to a subscription model for their products. I don't have enough business-savyness to figure if his statement about revenue bouncing back up in 2019 is anything more than PR bs - it's from earning call after all. But I'm interested in hearing what other Polycounters think about it.
Replies
-Edit- Wait, did Adobe do it first? I think I'd have a better grasp of his sincerity if I knew how successful Adobe's transition was.
All your modeling tools will come in the form of a 0.003% drop rate.
Joking aside,... they have been restructuring for a while. About 2 years ago a lot of Chinese Autodesk devs lost their jobs for the same reason. Something subscription something something....
I think I just found the company whose financial statements I will analyze for my MBA accounting assignment
I think it's way more complex than you make it seem, by calling it "anti-consumer".
In some ways, absolutely it is anti-consumer. You never own the software, and if you stop paying you lose access. I'm not sure how long old version are supported, but if for some reason you need an old odd version number, it wouldn't surprise me if they just say "You're out of luck. Just use the newest versionz~ we don't offer the old ones anymore."
On the other hand though, I'd argue it's way more consumer friendly than it used to be. They used to require huge one-time payments for that year's version of the software. At least now, you get the new versions so long as you stay subscribed. Even if the monthly fee is still wicked high, too high, it does make the software more accessible than the one-time-fee model. It brings autodesk software to the masses, without quite as many users needing to pirate it.
My heart goes out to those who lost their jobs. Sucks, horribly. Especially this time of the year. Wishing them all a soft landing, and quick rebound.
Right, but doesn't that also mean they don't have to try harder with each new release because they don't have to convince people to upgrade anymore? As a modeler, the only reason I upgraded from 2016 to 2017 was performance on heavy models, I'm still looking for a reason to upgrade to 2018 as of today.
3 versions back are supported, from what I remember when talking to AD. And yes, otherwise you're out of luck. Which is very annoying when publishers want to make HD remasters and their original pipeline and assets are in Max 9 or Maya 8.5
The media & entertainment division (M&E) is one such part and the bit that most of us will be more familiar with due to its products - Max, Maya, Motionbuilder, etc. This division and products account for less than 10% of Autodesks total revenue. This is not big secret and can easily be viewed in their annual reports.
While its easy to come down on Autodesk, there's alot of very good people working there are are genuinely trying to do the best they can for the end users like us. People can choose to believe that if they want but its true. I know this because I was one of them and was at Autodesk for over 7 years. Personally I would stop worrying and thinking about Autodesk will do, I used to see this alot and still do on threads like this. Too many people try and speculate and guess what's going on and in my experience I've never seen a speculation that was completely true.
Spare a thought for the people who have just lost their jobs a few weeks before xmas.
You've got a point here!
At least in entertainment AD should have a good position. Although I bet their cash cow really is CAD & Co. and that's where the focus is.
Not only that, which package can seriously replace Max or Maya? Most switches I hear of in AAA studios are non-switches as far as Autodesk is concerned. It's ditching Max for Maya or vice versa.
Media and Entertainment is 138.9 million and Architecture, Engineering, Construction is 880.9 million
There is no way Max or Maya is on the chopping block, but I can't say I'd be surprised if they did end up cutting one in the near future. This is a corporation after all.
Anything I say regarding the corporation is presumptuous as I have not worked there, And I agree that there are definitely a lot of people working there who are innovative and have good intentions. However, Even if such a small amount of revenue is generated from the M&E Division, almost all their products and services stem from the same tree which is surface/material modelling, where they have been playing "catch up" with smaller products for the last decade. I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that the fact the A&D/CAD applications have such a high user retention and return is because there are a huge amount of businesses willing to pay extortionate subscription fees for the "industry standard".
While there are still glaring issues with their products AD must be aware of, They leave them out so that can patch them further down their roadmap, It creates a cash-cow which they can constantly milk because they are pretending to add value each release, Which is exploitative business practices typical of a market leader, Corruption like that is rife across all areas of industry,MY gripe is that they really have stagnated development of their products to the point where it interferes with the creative process and I have to always be on the lookout of a new application to use for a tool which AD should be able to integrate quickly into their pipeline.
This move might be a turning point which will split the industries, stating that autodesk is clearly made for architecture purposes, and polish their products towards that, maybe merging maya with 3ds sometime in the future. I mean, other programs are already beong used in many studios already.
Is that a justification for charging high prices? well that's a matter of opinion. But I think it highlights that different industries have different business models and requirements, and one size doesn't always fit all.
Personally I'd be cautious of assuming or making vague accusations of corruption or deliberately slowing development for profit. I certainly didn't witness anything like that and the amount of compliance that I had to go through was insane.
But when it comes to features and development, ones mans trash is another mans treasure. While many people demand innovation and features, the same amount want nothing new and only bug fixes. Trying to appease both people can be literally impossible.
I don't agree with view that software like Max/Maya haven't moved on in the last 10 years, they have massively. Granted they might not have the features you want but its unfair to say stagnated, because they haven't. They've had a lot of work done and some of which isn't trivial and has taken years to be complete and ready for release.
I'm perhaps being biased, but I too also expect to see some positive progress with software as I've a dept and pipeline to think about, I'm perhaps a little more forgiving as I've been inside the collective.
But back the recent news, Autodesk (and their competitors) have been investing heavily in cloud and they've probably staffed up heavily to do that in order to changed their systems. That's been a multi year transition and now they're hoping to enter a growth phase (as their statement suggests), they looking to trim off some fat. that they can't sustain. They also announced earlier this year they they would stop selling their games middleware. Wouldn't surprise me if they also look at retire some more product too.
/Salty former Softimage user
fyi, I was a softimage employee and went through acquisition and EoL until eventually I was made redundant, so yeah I know the pain and where the bodies are buried so to speak.
Right now I'm working in the education field and developing curricula using Blender. If the next wave of students start learning stuff like Blender due to the fact that it is free and they can actually afford to play with it in their own time then we might see Maya loose some of its industry standard value.
Idk, just some random speculation.
Why? This is simply not true. You're putting your students at a distinct disadvantage. Legacy tools, new tools and tech determine pipeline not someone who used blender because it was free in college. Unbelievable.
There are factors here that are beyond your control and influence. Blender is by no means bad software and I admire the work the foundation does because it helps keep Autodesk, SideFX, The Foundry etc honest and on their toes. But Blender isn't currently dislodging the likes of Maya, Max, Modo and Hondini from pipelines not from the people and studios I know.
Open source and free software has obvious attractions, but it's expensive to maintain, on top of any additional tools and plugins that you may also use.
Autodesk does have to keep improving their software, but the price of the licenses isnt something most places even worry about. And why learn blender in college based off the sole reason that its free? Autodesk offers their products to students for free as well. And when I was in school they didnt even check if you were a student. they would accept any email address. You just could not sell any of your work you made with it. Which is fair, besides the majority of student work isn't sell-able anyways.
And ive talked to people at quite a few indie studios who cant afford more than one seat of max or maya, and the majority of their teams use modo. but they still have one seat of max or maya for assets they receive either from contractors/asset store, or for animating.
But I would have to agree teaching your students blender because its free is not helping them. If their portfolio is just as good as the person using max they may lose out to the person using max since they wont be able to hit the ground running.
A "small studio" could include five people earning a total of < 100k a year. It's not uncommon for groups like that to use free software from the very beginning.
Haha, there might have been some confusion. I'm not teaching college. This is elementary - high school after school stuff (And a lot of the decisions are made due to cost). Yea I don't know of any colleges teaching Blender right now. What I do see are people picking up Blender on their own because it's free and pretty decent at this point (fyi I picked up Blender first before learning the industry standard stuff like Maya, Zbrush, Substance Painter, etc.) Some artists in different countries that maybe don't have as much money are also using it and getting pretty darn good.
The other one is Modo. I don't really have any experience with Modo but I am seeing some pretty cool features for stuff like modular modeling.
All I was saying is that things like Blender and Modo might be picked up more and start to see smaller studios adopt that instead of Maya. I doubt the large studios or any studio with an already well established pipeline will switch in the forseeable future though.
In terms of sources for Blender based studios. The first two that come to mind are Theory Animation and Tangent Animation
Both are not massive and started pretty recently I believe. But before that I don't recall any real professional work being done in Blender. Now I'm seeing at least a few things pop up here and there. I seem to recall seeing a Blender based game studio recently but I can't remember who it was.
Again for all the haters
https://www.blendernation.com/2014/04/23/monument-valley-a-stunning-ios-game-designed-with-blender/
You surely understand that the percentages of studios that use blender as their main pipeline packages seem to me very small (altho i am basing this on my professional experience so i only got "word of mouth" as a basis to what i state, i dont know what the "official" stats are ). I would advise not to cripple your students professionally even before they start. I would recomend teaching an industry package and maybe a sideclass to transport that same knowledge to blender.
I see no harm future career aspirations or otherwise, exsposing your elementary level students too an OSS framework such as Blender supplimented with MODO. Utilised in tandem pretty much a powerful ad hoc pipline any which way you'd tend to look at it and that's said as a long time Blenderite since 2.4xx days. Now each package will most certainly compliment the other's workflow for whatever course curriculum you may have in mind teaching however the industry standard for the moment at least is firmly skewed towards ADSK's suite of apps.
It's what you know, if you're comfortable with Maya; then odds are you'll stay with it, if you are or changed direction to say Blender or Modo then you'll use either in your workflow.
Mmm..not completely true... I think it depends of the level of education we are talking about.
I mean if it's like a 3D full paid college program, of course using Blender is not a good idea since it doesn't prepare and teach you the main tools used in the current filed but if it's introductory teaching to the magnificent world of 3D and CG, Blender is a great for this.
Back in my final years in high school, I had an introduction complementary class of 3D and we were using MilkShape...
Also, the program shoudnt matter...I learned Maya at college but ended up using both 3dsMax and XSI SofitIMage in my professional experiences....
I mean its gonna take more time to readapt yourself to the program workflow but the knowledge is still there, even for modelling...
Chris rightly pointed out that Blender accounts for a very small percentage of the professional sector, and teaching courses in Blender rather than Maya or Max at the university level would absolutely put the students at a disadvantage vs schools that teach industry standard stuff. This is 100% true.
The fact that one or two studios someone may have heard of are using Blender is absolutely moot. This is about getting students ready for a very competitive job market. Learning blender will likely teach many of the fundamental concepts, but again, it puts them at a distinct disadvantage for an entry level position. This is verifiable fact, not simply an opinion, all you need to do is look at the hiring posts on Polycount, ArtStation, etc, and pay attention to the software requirements.
As far as elementary-high school courses go. I think Blender is a great introduction to the world of 3D modeling. We're not talking about undergrads dropping $40k per semester, we're talking about kids learning about a topic that they may or may not have any real interest in pursuing. That's great, and I applaud Joshua for getting that together. Chris assumed we were talking college level education, and in that context he is 100% on point.
Joshua: Autodesk offers educational licenses, and you could probably put together courses based on Max/Maya without much expense as well. But again, just the fact that you're putting in the effort to do this is really cool.
All they ask is where you go to school. You get to use pretty much any of the programs for free for three years, and you can't sell your work.
I am a student and use the educational license products within the terms of agreement, and I am not advocating cheating the system, but perhaps if you write to autodesk you might get permission to use educational licenses for your high school kids?
Not that there is anything wrong with blender, but they will have to learn one of the autodesk programs sooner or later it seems. If you can learn it for free, why not?
"He expressed a similar sentiment during a quarterly conference call with financial analysts. Otoh, he welcomes pirates as new customers, and counts students as customers, who pay him nothing."
So i would avoid reading onto sentences where you cant reach the source\context of them
mr. antagonist appears to respond here.
Lol... "please spend hundreds of dollars per month now, on stuff we promise will be there in future". yeah... okay...