Autode$k aquires Alias...

[Petros Ioannou]

check

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5970886&siteID=123112


Any comments?

[Eduardo Rolon]

There goes Mac support... Welcome MayaViz Studio R8

[Anonymous]

Just heard this:
Autodesk bought Alias.
This way, they own 3D Studio Max AND Maya
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=212192&PrinterFriendly=true
This small remark I find VERY interesting:
"Autodesk will use the $182m (£107m) takeover to support customers moving from 2D to 3D computer-aided design programs."
So, who will be next?

[Anonymous]

Now I find out this is old news (2 weeks old):
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Autodesk_to_buy_Alias
And I do not see this mentioned anywhere in here...

Do you think this is irrelevant to us?
Because, the way I see it, this is a big move on the 3D scene.
My feeling is, Autodesk realizes AutoCad and all those other 2d c.r.a.p. wont get them anywhere, so they are shifting 3D.
Does this ring a bell?

[Djordje]

It was mentioned:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=46614&highlight=#466

so I merged the topics.

[Scott Davis]

Krippahl wrote:
so they are shifting 3D. Does this ring a bell?

It rang a bell 3 and a half years ago when they bought Revit Technology Corporation.

[TomWaltz]

Why would we care? Are a lot of architects using Alias?

Autodesk bought Lightscape a few years ago. No one really cared about that.

[Eduardo Rolon]

And LightScape is resting in peace as a stand alone porgram. I don't think that the main reason to buy Alias was Maya but StudioTools to be to Inventor what Revit is to Architectural Desktop and make inroads into the Industrial Design Market (most of the car companies use it). Also lets not forget Alias SketchBookPro since Autodesk's product (whatever the name was) was a flop.
This looks like the start of a beautiful monopoly...

[__archiben]

Scott wrote:

Krippahl wrote:
so they are shifting 3D. Does this ring a bell?

It rang a bell 3 and a half years ago when they bought Revit Technology Corporation.

i thought about writing an equally facetious comment when i read that a few days ago scott, but i'm glad i held off: it sounded so much better coming from you!

cheers!
~/archiben

[stefan]

As far as official opinions go, they were mainly interested in the StudioTools and only to a lesser extent in Maya.

Sure, they allready did this in the past: Inventor to join (and overrule) Mechanical Desktop (AutoCAD-based) and Revit to join (and overwhelm) Architectural Desktop (also AutoCAD-based, do we see a pattern?).

But all these applications are still on the market and are still being upgraded.

Sure, Lightscape is dead, but most of what Lightscape could do is now possible in VIZ and 3ds max.

It was a surprising announcement, but merging two very distinct applications (that are both getting old) into one doesn't sound like the best road to success... I rather think that a next-generation of these applications will build in the aquired intellectual property and core developers base of the old ones. Think rahther in terms of moving from 3D Studio for DOS to 3ds max and from Wavefront and Poweranimator into Maya.

At the recent Autodesk User conference, it was pretty clear that the 'new' Autodesk kids (Revit and Inventor) are getting pushed rather hard. But not to say that they aren't thinking about the future of AutoCAD...

Interesting times, that's for sure.