And the corporate buyouts and mergers continue:
Autodesk, the company that develops the industry standard drafting package AutoCAD and the 3D modeling application 3D Studio Max, has announced that it is purchasing Alias, makers of the popular 3D modeling program Maya, in a cash transaction worth US$182 million.
My first reaction to the newsbite was that they somehow got that report backwards. It’s kinda like Corel buying Adobe, for goodness sake. I didn’t even know anyone that mattered still used 3DSMax, to be honest. (On the other hand, Autodesk does own AutoCAD, which is probably where the financial leverage to make a purchase like this is coming from.)
My second reaction was that US$182 million seemed really low for what was essentially the market leader of the professional 3d modelling market segment. I mean, didn’t some fool just pay US$2.6 billion for Skype? I’m probably oversimplifying this, but you’d think that a voice client would cost less than an application suite that they use to make feature films, you know?
So apart from Maya and 3DS, the only other two major applications on the market are the two has-beens, SoftImage and Lightwave. Nice. It’s like Microsoft’s antitrust suit all over again.