Autodesk announces 925 layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#41

Post by Silhouette » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

rdudek wrote: post #22

Silhouette wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Adobe isn't exactly resting on its laurels and allowing their products to stagnate. The thing is, if Adobe had been consistently developing valuable new functionality and making it available in newer versions, their customers would have been paying them to upgrade in the previous model as well. The fact that so many people didn't see enough added value to buy each major upgrade suggests objectively that the produc…

Also note, Adobe's products are known to be some of the most pirated pieces of software around. During my high school and college times, everyone I knew owned pirated copies of Photoshop or Creative Suite. Same folks now just pay the monthly fee to have the fully updated and activated product because they can't be assed to fight activation issues periodically.

That might be even worse news for Adobe, though. It's hard to find reliable information about how successful their SaaS model has been, but the most plausible arguments/data I've seen would suggest they have very roughly half as many CC subscribers by now as they sold full copies of the main CS6 suites. IIRC the figures did not take into account sales of individual CS product licences, nor allow for existing customers who had say CS5 or CS5.5 and had chosen not to upgrade to CS6.

If that is anything close to accurate -- and I stress the "if", because the data is probably at least third-hand here -- then Adobe would have lost more than half of their previous customer base in the transition, and still not regained them several years later. If a significant proportion of those they have gained are ex-pirates, that's an even stronger suggestion that their own permanently licensed products prior to CC might still be their biggest competition.

The situation with pirates seems less relevant for most of Autodesk's products, as their market is much more likely to be professionals than hobbyists anyway. But the implications of earlier permanent offerings potentially representing ongoing competition for their new subscription-only model even several years later would be just as unpleasant as they are for Adobe. Anecdotally, one of my companies has some big name Autodesk software for use with a specific part of what we do, and we've just decided that we'll make do with the existing systems and not buy any more or any updates if they're only going to rent new versions to us and won't let us buy any more copies of the existing version we already use. If significant numbers of larger businesses that already have spare capacity in their volume licensing deals decide to take a similar approach, that definitely won't be good news for Autodesk's new strategy, but I guess time will tell.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#42

Post by maratd » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #38

coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are a huge player with many expensive software suits. But they are not very innovative. Compared to what? "Disruptive" social sites and Uber for X? There is orders of magnitude more computer science innovation in Autodesk than in the average "unicorn".

"There is orders of magnitude more computer science innovation in Autodesk than in the average "unicorn" I was under the impression that they've bought most of their marketable innovations. I realize this was not a fair comment to current employees there - yes, the software suites are impressive and Autocad reseachers have produces very nice things. I would still categorize them as a huge corporation with vested inte…

> I was under the impression that they've bought most of their marketable innovations.

They did, but once you buy it, it's yours? The large companies buying up smaller ones are essentially funding the research and innovation.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#43

Post by Disruptive_Dave » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

officialchicken wrote: post #23

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #18

That "A" logo is too close to Google's AdWords logo for my liking.

I'd say you've got it backwards - Autodesk began using the 'A' logo in the early 80's and shipped on 5-1/4 floppies - at a time when very few computer users had mice, tablets, and (VGA/EGA) graphics-capable displays.

I see how that reads now; I wasn't intending to say who had it first, just saw Autodesk for the first time and that popped into my head.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#44

Post by vvanders » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #42

fsloth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is orders of magnitude more computer science innovation in Autodesk than in the average "unicorn" I was under the impression that they've bought most of their marketable innovations. I realize this was not a fair comment to current employees there - yes, the software suites are impressive and Autocad reseachers have produces very nice things. I would still categorize them as a huge corporation with vested inte…

> I was under the impression that they've bought most of their marketable innovations. They did, but once you buy it, it's yours? The large companies buying up smaller ones are essentially funding the research and innovation.

Not when their goal is to lock-out all the competition in the space, which is something Autodesk is very interested in.

That seems like the opposite of innovation to me.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#45

Post by Silhouette » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

isaiahg wrote: post #39

Silhouette wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the trouble is that the FBX format in parts of these industries is like the DOC(X) and XLS(X) formats in office productivity software: everyone uses it, so if you want to use a tool that doesn't reliably convert to/from it losslessly you are at risk of severe friction when working with others. And like DOC(X) and XLS(X), it's a proprietary format, which creates various complications for anyone who wants to cr…

> notably a lack of UI refinement That's a common misconception. Blender's UI is extremely simple and innovative.

In my case, it's a "misconception" based on being the guy who has to orchestrate a production pipeline from start to finish and pay the bills for everyone along the way.

Blender's UI may be many things, but like any tool in this field, simple is hardly one of them. In any case, a significant problem in practice is that Blender's natural ways of working don't always match what is used by just about everyone else. Sometimes it's got just the right feature to model something in a certain way, but you then incur a disproportionate cost to adjust that asset so it's useful as part of your overall pipeline, and while the UI for the handy feature might be decent, the overall process is glitchy and error-prone.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#46

Post by BWStearns » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

chefkoch wrote: post #40

fsloth wrote: post #26

Just in case people are not familiar - Autodesk owns a considerable share of cad market (which is far more encompassing than just Autocad) and they've palmed few of the biggest 3D modeling suites - Maya, 3DMax and (sigh ) XSI. Their DWG format (Autocad's native databaseformat) is a binary blob that still has a huge impact in construction industry and is a major PITA unless one is using Autocad tools. They are a huge…

>They are a huge player with many expensive software suits. But they are not very innovative. In architecture and construction they are by far the leader in Building Information Modeling, so i think it depends on what you put in the spotlight.

I rather liked working with their stuff but converting from their ever-so-slightly-different BIM format to standard BIM format was not 100% (I was using a library), wasn't the worst though.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#47

Post by krschultz » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #30

fsloth wrote: post #26

Just in case people are not familiar - Autodesk owns a considerable share of cad market (which is far more encompassing than just Autocad) and they've palmed few of the biggest 3D modeling suites - Maya, 3DMax and (sigh ) XSI. Their DWG format (Autocad's native databaseformat) is a binary blob that still has a huge impact in construction industry and is a major PITA unless one is using Autocad tools. They are a huge…

> They are a huge player with many expensive software suits. But they are not very innovative. Compared to what? "Disruptive" social sites and Uber for X? There is orders of magnitude more computer science innovation in Autodesk than in the average "unicorn".

IMO, Solidworks was more innovative than AutoCAD in the 90s and early 2000s. AutoCAD followed their lead by making Inventor. Today OnShape is innovating and AutoCAD is following with Fusion 360.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#48

Post by ginko » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #30

fsloth wrote: post #26

Just in case people are not familiar - Autodesk owns a considerable share of cad market (which is far more encompassing than just Autocad) and they've palmed few of the biggest 3D modeling suites - Maya, 3DMax and (sigh ) XSI. Their DWG format (Autocad's native databaseformat) is a binary blob that still has a huge impact in construction industry and is a major PITA unless one is using Autocad tools. They are a huge…

> They are a huge player with many expensive software suits. But they are not very innovative. Compared to what? "Disruptive" social sites and Uber for X? There is orders of magnitude more computer science innovation in Autodesk than in the average "unicorn".

Compared to actually innovative CAD companies.

Autodesks MO for the last couple of decades is to just buy out any competitor in the market.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#49

Post by krschultz » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

arca_vorago wrote: post #24

I have a lot of seething anger for Autodesk. They have managed to achieve mindshare lockin for so many people when doing certain tasks (primarily AutoCAD variations), but their pricing is horrible on budgets. $210 monthly cost for a single Autocad license?! Thankfully, avoidance of their ecosystem has pushed me further into Blender which I am loving more and more, but on the business side I still quietly mumble curse…

$210 a month is low in that industry. Seriously. Solidworks, CATIA, and NX are all significantly more expensive.

Re: Autodesk announces 925 layoffs

#50

Post by technotony » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 6:11 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #26

Just in case people are not familiar - Autodesk owns a considerable share of cad market (which is far more encompassing than just Autocad) and they've palmed few of the biggest 3D modeling suites - Maya, 3DMax and (sigh ) XSI. Their DWG format (Autocad's native databaseformat) is a binary blob that still has a huge impact in construction industry and is a major PITA unless one is using Autocad tools. They are a huge…

Project cyborg isn't innovative: https://autodeskresearch.com/projects/cyborg

Tools for modelling matter at the nano/molecular scale. Seems pretty far out to me, I get it's just research right now but not many other groups working on this.