Autodesk Acquires Alias

Autodesk announced recently that they have signed an agreement to acquire Alias for $182M.  Alias makes Maya (3D modeling, animation & rendering solution), MotionBuilder (productivity suite for real-time character animation ), StudioTools (design tools for transportation and consumer products), and other software.  Alias software has been used in almost every film nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the categories of Best Visual Effects and Best Animated Feature Films and the company won an Oscar® for the award year 2002.

One of Autodesk's statement about this acquisition is this will "better serve our customers by providing a more complete offering for design, data management, and visualization needs."  Autodesk is confident that by owning both products they can invest more in the 3d space, create new work flows, share work flows, and integrate better open source standards.  As Mark Petit, Vice President of Product Development and Operations, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk stated in an interview with Will McCullough, "Having the industry's best portfolio of creative tools under one company will lead us to invest more and faster into these applications. We will be able to bridge some existing gaps into the current production workflow, offering solutions from pre-visualization, to production, post-production and mastering. FBX, a freely available toolkit, will be at the heart of our interoperability strategy. Autodesk and Alias share the vision of an open, connected production environment based on industry standards."

Will there be a "Maxa" or a "MayaMax" or an "M&M" hybrid product in the future?  I can understand why deals such as these can make some people nervous -- you've invested time and money into a particular product and you aren't enthusiastic about losing that investment.  Or you're a Maya or Max "lover" and are apprehensive about your beloved software morphing into some monstrosity.  Discussion has been rampant on user forums -- almost to the point of hysteria and at the very least hyperbole!  Truthfully, there should be no cause for worry - especially about any investments you've made in either Max or Maya.  Everything I've seen and heard points to both products continuing on their own path with the added benefit of future interoperability between products.  It wasn't that long ago that Autodesk's Revit purchase had users predicting the demise of either Revit or Architectural Desktop.  Both products are alive and well today and are viable alternatives to specific industry needs, which is exactly what I foresee happening in this case. 

Personally, I'm ecstatic about the news.  It gives me a whole bunch of new toys to work with!

For more information, go here: www.autodesk.com/autodeskandalias

About Alias:
Alias Research, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, was founded in 1983 and Wavefront Technologies was founded in 1984. In 1995, the two companies merged under SGI. In July 2003 the company changed its name to Alias®.  In June 2004, Alias became an independent company that is privately owned by Accel-KKR and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.  They employ approximately 600 employees and last year's annual revenue was approximately $83M.  Doug Walker is President and CEO.  www.alias.com