Heh, EQ: Lux is probably breaking out the champagne right now I'd guess. This is just the move to drive more customers their way. SideFX too. Houdini is suddenly looking like a much more appealing pipeline package.
I downloaded the trial of Houdini last month, checking it out now :) Edit: Luxury, they didn't really do much with Maya 2008, but 2009 has a lot of improvements and some BIG new features (animation layers, for one). Nothing really fundamental though, probably just stuff that should have been in 2008 anyway. I think all…