Autodesk CEO on Investing in the Future
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
People's lives were turned upside-down and dehumanized so that we could be a better part of a global 'portfolio' of these mid-sized acquisitions turned divisions. Transfers to other divisions or retraining weren't offered.
After that, I didn't want to go back. I went to work on Apple's video stack instead. Simply put, Autodesk is inhuman, and not in a malicious sense, they just don't consider human factors.
Their old website from 1996 was WAY ahead of its time
http://web.archive.org/web/19970719164505/http://www.softima...
The way they showed things "poking" through the background really had me.
I went to school at Mesmer Animation Labs in Seattle in 1994 before 3D animation was a thing at any school...
Fond memories of SGI and the O2 as well....
Context -
You could keep the same view of your model - but you could swap between tools (the way you interacted with the model - and all your menus etc on either side by hitting the F keys.. it allowed super fluidity. Then they had nurbs and clay and all sorts or stuff... what killed them was that MAYA was better at rendering (I THINK, i may be wrong - its an old code sir, but I think it checks out))
So, anyone using Fusion 360, literally has to store the data in Autodesk cloud. There is no option to keep confidential/private data out of it (by design):
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideastation-request-a-feature-or/please-support-quot-local-only-quot-files/idc-p/5831809#M10320
They want us to store potentially extremely valuable data in their cloud... and we're supposed to believe the server side software will be of higher quality than the client side software (which crashes).
Also worth noting, Autodesk has no bug bounty nor similar sensible way to reward disclosure of security bugs to them. They really, really don't want to know.
To me, forcing customers to keep stuff in their cloud at the same time as sticking their head in the sand re: security... that's not going to end well. :(
The points you make may be accurate but they have no bearing on the security of all our customer data stored with us. I take its confidentiality and security very seriously and I believe my co-workers do the same.
The points I made seem (to me) directly relevant to the security of customer data.
Honestly curious. :)
I'd argue that having your data on the cloud is pretty much giving away ownership. Companies don't want to do it.
The thing is, they differentiate themselves from open source offerings by having a massive ecosystem and guaranteed compatibility across your whole production pipeline because everyone else is using them as well. Just as Microsoft have with Office and Adobe have with Creative Cloud, Autodesk have a degree of market dominance because of community and networking effects, regardless of any features or usability or pricing issues. However, unlike Office or CC users, there are probably relatively few professionals using Autodesk products who operate in isolation or only need to share data within their own small group, which makes it much harder for any disruptive newcomer to challenge their position.
This is unfortunately untrue. In fact saying that this is untrue is downplaying it, this could not be further from truth and is ridiculous to even consider. Anyone who has used all of these programs knows how incredibly awkward blender is to use. Even moving an object around or saving a scene is a disaster so forget about cranking through shots in a studio under a deadline.
If blender was better, studios wouldn't pay thousands for licenses of other closed software. They do though, and that should tell you something. Animation studios large and small don't have money to burn but the truth is that the tools make a huge difference in productivity and blender is not even in the same league as commercial tools.