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Alias In Acquisition Talks With Private Equity Firm
TeachingMachines writes "Alias, the makers of the venerable Maya 3D animation and effects software, have announced their possible sale to an unnamed 3rd party, described as a 'leading private equity investment firm'. Alias is currently owned by SGI, and the transaction is still considered to be tentative. I, for one, hope that SGI holds onto Alias, as in its current state it is arguably the best 3D modelling and animation suite available, and it is available for Linux. Cross your fingers..."
I think Maya is one of the most revolutionary products in software history not just for its tech capabilities, but the way they sell it.
To curb piracy of their full value product, they released a Personal Learn Edition that made all the features of the full product available, but put on a watermark that made the output useless for commercial use and encrypted the saved files so that the commerical version would not open them. Those who designed something and then sold it, however, could send their encrypted file in when they purchase their license to get it converted to a file their full version could open and output without the watermark. They also offered a $20 how-to DVD for those who wanted to learn the program with a minimal outlay of money.
They also made what could be the most dramatic price cut in software history, knocking their entry-level product's price from $7,500 to $1,999 and taking their high-level product from $16,000 to $7000. Clearly, they made it up on volume.
So, not only was this a great technical program, but it became priced so that even moderately-funded producers could afford the program, and therefore made it accessable to the people who needed it. I just hope these unnamed investors don't raise the prices back to where they were...
It's better if Alias separated itself from the sinking ship that is SGI. SGI is really losing its ability to hold onto any market share very quickly, and it's better that Alias avoids getting sucked down with SGI in an implosion.
To curb piracy of their full value product, they released a Personal Learn Edition that made all the features of the full product available
While I think the reasoning behing the Personal Learning Edition was great, they implemented it poorly.
I developed an interest in 3D during uni, and explored 3Dsmax, lightwave, etc.
I was excited when I saw the PLE, so I grabbed it with the intention of learning.
No such luck.
The watermark on any finished product is a fine idea, but they place a huge watermark (and not exactly a subtle, transparent one) across the entire modelling view, which makes using the product for longer than about 20 minutes impossible unless you want a spliting headache.
This actually steered me away from Maya, so I ended up sticking with 3dsmax for my uni subjects.
No offence to SGI, I really loved their products, but sadly, I think they are a sinking ship. A few years ( perhaps even just a year back ) when Alias renamed itself from Alias Wavefront to just alias, and moved prices from 7500$ per unit to like 2000$, it looked like alias was about to follow suit. For years, Maya and before that, Power Animator lead the way in 3d graphics, and they are still an industry leader.
:) It would be a shame to see Alias and their products go away should SGI go the way of the dodo ( which is a very probrable thing to happen ).
I think the best thing that could happen is to seperate themselves away from SGI as much as possible. This has been happenning to some degree already. If you recall a few years back, the URL used to be www.aw.sgi.com , now its www.alias.com... odd that
As to the unnamed suitor, thats a bit hard to guess. Number 1... its most likely not Microsoft... they tried this game once. When NT 4 was new, they were the proud owners of SoftImage... it didnt work too well for them then... cant see them trying again. I cant picture it being Avid or Discreet, as they both already have a vested interest in a direct competitor ( SoftImage and 3d Studios Max respectively ). I cant see it being any linux company as suggested before... it just is to far from the core business of any of them, to make any sense. Their isnt a linux company I can think of, with the money to buy Alias, that has a focus on multimedia.
In my mind, if its a big name company, that leaves just one company that it makes sense to be. Apple. Maya was recently ported to both Mac and Linux... apple is losing its luster as a media empire... and they have the money. I say if its a big name company behind the buyout, it makes the most sense to be Apple. I just pray they keep the wintel ports going, or I will be very pissed off.
For those of you that dont know, Maya is one sweet piece of software, and a shining example of how to pioneer a user interface.