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Adobe bids for The Foundry
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Spot on! If, by some chance, a company such as AJA were to acquire Nuke, this could present itself with a hardware comparability issue. While grateful that BMD has acquired Fusion and developing the software further, the lack of some flexibility in hardware options can present challenges. After reading what Andrew and Tim have pointed out, despite my opposition to rental only, Adobe would be the best fit.
Rental only or boxed in with smaller range of compatible hardware, which offers the least amount of flexibility? Love to hear your thoughts.
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[David Mathis] “After reading what Andrew and Tim have pointed out, despite my opposition to rental only, Adobe would be the best fit.”
There are some interesting ways in which Adobe is not a good fit, too. If Adobe were to buy The Foundry, there are some things they’d need to work out.
The Foundry develops for a niche within a niche; will this fit in with Adobe’s broad creative appeal? Would this be the beginning of tiered Creative Cloud offerings?
The Foundry develops for Linux as well as Mac/Windows, and the Linux platform is very important for their customers. Adobe CC is for Mac or Windows only.
The Foundry’s customers are extremely demanding, expecting (and willing to pay for) a high level of support. Adobe’s support organization is tiered (I think) by volume, not by product.
Of course, one shouldn’t believe everything one reads on the Internet [link]. Though paradoxically, that must also extend to Internet admonitions not to believe everything you read on the Internet.
I still think Autodesk is a possible buyer. M&E has been trending downward; they blame a lot of that on the market in general, but surely some of it has to do with pressure from The Foundry on Autodesk’s M&E portfolio. We’re mainly talking about NUKE here — and what the ramifications of owning NUKE on Smoke/Flame would be are interesting — but I think that MARI would be of huge strategic importance to Autodesk’s 3D platforms, and less so but still relevant in that area, COLORWAY.
I also still think Dassault Systems [link] is a possible buyer. They could buy their way into competition in the M&E business with Autodesk. Dassault just loves buying companies, and if they decide that DCC would be a good adjacent market to get into, this is their chance.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[David Mathis] “Rental only or boxed in with smaller range of compatible hardware, which offers the least amount of flexibility? Love to hear your thoughts.”
To me being tied to specific hardware offers the least amount of flexibility and presents more cumbersome obstacle to overcome. Paying a subscription to Adobe is much more of a mental roadblock than an actual workflow roadblock. I really like the fact that these days I can have multiple NLEs installed on the same system and they can use the same I/O hardware where as 10 years ago that wasn’t the case.
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I agree with what you are saying. My fear is if Autodesk were to be in on the action. Combustion was a nice alternative to After Effects but it died a somewhat slow, horrible death. If my memory is correct, Autodesk stopped developing this software shortly before pulling the plug. We all remember Shake and its demise. Granted that Smoke is still going strong. Just not sure how Nuke will fit into the picture.
Probably not a real concern but at least something to think about. There will be better support than perhaps with Adobe. Not sure what the price structure would be if it is at a much lower cost then things will be interesting to say the least just as our weather has been. Just waiting to see how the subscriber base at Adobe is going to react once Fusion is available for the Mac platform. This story is worth watching as the impacts could present both opprortunity and some challenges.
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[David Mathis] “My fear is if Autodesk were to be in on the action. Combustion was a nice alternative to After Effects but it died a somewhat slow, horrible death. If my memory is correct, Autodesk stopped developing this software shortly before pulling the plug. We all remember Shake and its demise. Granted that Smoke is still going strong. Just not sure how Nuke will fit into the picture.”
I don’t think Autodesk could drive Flame sales by buying The Foundry and killing NUKE. Looking at feature set and philosophy (and cost!), Flame and NUKE are surprisingly differentiated. IF NUKE were to disappear tomorrow, I think that Fusion, Mamba and Natron would suddenly look more interesting to a lot of people. I’m not so sure there are a lot of NUKE shops that would find Flame appealing.
I know that Autodesk just EOLed SoftImage, but they have also kept 3ds Max alongside Maya for years. There is precedent both ways.
As for Smoke going strong, it’s a pretty confusing time right now. After a few years of gravitating toward Flame, Smoke has now been rather forcefully separated; it can no longer share projects into Flame. I’m not really sure what to expect yet from the next release of Smoke, but I sure do hope to find out at IBC.
[David Mathis] “Not sure what the price structure would be if it is at a much lower cost then things will be interesting to say the least just as our weather has been. Just waiting to see how the subscriber base at Adobe is going to react once Fusion is available for the Mac platform.”
When looking at the whole 3D and compositing competitive landscape, there’s also the pending release of BUF [link] to keep in mind.
But compositing as a whole has been utterly static lately: pretty much NUKE/Ae or bust.
It’s interesting to me that Mamba, which is both cheap and powerful, is not getting more people excited. Likewise, that Natron, which free and open-source, has basically no footprint anywhere.
Fusion is a nice product with some real advantages, but it’s also pretty quirky and surrendered the lead to NUKE (in marketshare and in technology) ages ago. Can BMD develop it fast enough to get it where it needs to be to make NUKE customers happy? Is the fact that it’s from BMD enough to move the compositing market? Will even a fraction of the people who are excited about Fusion as an Ae alternative actually stick with it when they see what tradeoffs would be involved in that transition?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
The fear is though, as has happened in the past is that Adobe will cannibalise Fusion’s current stable of apps, only to bolster After Effects and Premiere with some of the features.
To be fair Adobe aren’t the only ones guilty of doing this, but other developers have done this sort of thing as well.
I don’t think that its a remote possibility, edging on paranoia, I actually think that it becomes a very real possibility.
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[Simon Billington] “The fear is though, as has happened in the past is that Adobe will cannibalise Fusion’s current stable of apps, only to bolster After Effects and Premiere with some of the features.”
Whenever there is a situation like this I don’t think worrying what will happen to the acquired tech/company is an unfounded fear.
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Oh I won’t lose any sleep over it, others might though. It’s just an observation.
Personally i think they would be fools for doing so.
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[Simon Billington] “Personally i think they would be fools for doing so.”
Largely agreed. The interesting part about NUKE isn’t some technology within it; it’s the whole package.
Not sure I’d say the same for, say, MARI and Photoshop, though, or Mischief and Ps/Il.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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