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 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
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