Exploring New Dimensions
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Softimage
Reorganizing was also the name of the game for Avid back in the fall of 2003. However, getting operating expenses under control was not the motivation in this case: Avid has been posting increasingly strong profit margins for the past four quarters – although
division numbers, including those of Softimage, are not broken out in Avid financial statements. “Our goal,” says Joseph Bentivegna, vice president of video development and operations for Avid (which now includes Softimage development), “was to better integrate the 3D side of the business into the overall strategy of the video development and operations group.”And while that may sound somewhat ominous for those concerned about the Montreal office, Bentivegna maintains that the core Softimage|XSI team will stay firmly planted in Montreal – and not only will there be no layoffs, the company is currently looking to add to that team both on the development and marketing sides.
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| Joe Bentivegna |
And where does the recent acquisition of NXN – maker of the popular asset management solution, alienbrain – fit into all this? “The acquisition of NXN is tailor-made for our 3D strategy,” states Bentivegna. “XSI is strong in the games market and alienbrain is very strong on the workflow side…together they are a force to be reckoned with.”
Bentivegna suggests that some exciting announcements regarding Avid’s long-term strategy – in which Softimage will play a strong part – are coming at NAB. And while he wasn’t willing to tip his hand entirely about the nature of the announcements, he did let on that the company is looking to move into new markets.
“We have this enormously flexible and modular XSI technology,” he explains, “and beginning to integrate that into our 2D products, while retaining XSI as a standalone 3D product, we can find new opportunities for 3D; for example, in broadcast where we’re extremely strong. What you will see at NAB is NXN, XSI and the rest of the Avid family being tied together – and this opening up new opportunities. Our message will be about best-of-breed technologies, highly integrated, with a company committed to the technology.”
Alias
To most people in the industry it came as no surprise when SGI and Alias announced on February 11th that they were looking at parting ways – perhaps the only real surprises were how it was going to happen – and that it took this long.So what makes this the right time for the two companies to go their separate ways? Says Alias President, Doug Walker: “About a year and a half ago we repositioned Maya in the marketplace so as to create significantly more volume for the technology overall. The result is that Maya sales have grown dramatically, as have Maya revenues. In that time we’ve expanded our development team and are continuing to hire aggressively even now. And because the company has been strongly profitable for over two years, that makes us quite attractive to investors.”
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| Doug Walker |
According to Walker, this move represents a “win/win” situation. “From our perspective,” he states, “the vast majority of our sales today are on the Windows platform with a growing number on Mac and Linux. Irix has become a much smaller part of our overall sales. Also, we’ve been looking for an opportunity to invest differently and more aggressively in our business moving forward.”
And after all these years of industry speculation that the “long-awaited announcement” would involve a Macromedia, Apple or some other such company, it turns out that Alias is actually being wooed by a private equity firm, whose name will not be disclosed until the final paperwork goes through.
Walker explains the choice of an investment firm saying: “We took a look at all of the potential buyers for Alias, including ‘strategic’ companies that would purchase Alias in order to leverage another part of their business – such as a hardware company. The other category of investor, financial, is interested in investing in technology in order to create a more significant value for the company over the next several years. We looked at both alternatives, and in the end, the better return for the SGI shareholder was the financial buyer. As it turned out, that was the way we at Alias were hoping it would go. A private equity firm is the kind of company that has ‘deep pockets’ or, the ability to invest and is patient with their investment. I can tell you that this company, which has significant experience in the technology business, averages an investment of six or seven years in their companies before they do anything with them to create a return for their shareholders…so it’s very patient money. Their objective is to significantly grow the value of the company by introducing new products and services that they can create a return with.”
So what does this bode for the future of Maya?
Says Walker: “We have an unwavering commitment to Maya and StudioTools. What we’re going to do to help us choose which paths to accelerate the fastest is talk to our customers. This is an incredible opportunity to build value for them. We’ll be talking to them about what new products and services they think we should invest in and bring to market.”
When asked if Alias will drop Irix support for their products once the deal is final, Walker says the company has no such plans.
Thus, while concerns have been raised about the number of 3D animation technology providers in the rather saturated entertainment space, it doesn’t seem that anyone’s going away just yet. Even 3D programs with a smaller market share, NewTek's LightWave and Side Effects's Houdini, seem to be holding their own in the niches they’ve carved out. This is all very good news for the 3D artist/animator – a bit of healthy competition helps drive the technology forward, keeps pricing competitive and means “more options” for the consumer.
Lisa Taylor is a freelance writer based in Ontario, Canada.
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