Autodesk收购Alias内幕

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快讯：Autodesk1.82亿美元收购Alias
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Autodesk to acquire Alias; what does it all mean? Two seemingly completely different paradigms of 3d with Maya and 3ds Max now sharing the same parent. When I heard the news, like most of you I freaked out. What does this mean for the future and the choices of where we devote our time and energy in the 3d world?

译文  ：Autodesk收购Alias，这意味着什么？3d领域的两个看起来完全不同的代表人物：Maya和3ds Max现在分享同一个父亲。当我听到这个消息，就像很多人一样，我感到迷惑。这对未来意味着什么，对我们在3d的世界选择哪里去投入我们的时间和精力呢？

I had an opportunity to speak with Dave Wharry, Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing, Alias, and Marc Petit, Vice President of Product Development and Operations, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk after preparing some questions based on all of the threads and personal conversations I had with many of you in both the Maya and 3ds Max communities. Since this was a voice conference I am summarizing a lot of the answers to my questions.

译文：在看了很多帖子和与Maya以及3ds max社区的许多人谈话后，我准备了很多问题，带着这些问题，我有幸能够和Alias的全球销售和市场副总裁  Dave Wharry先生和 Autodesk的媒体和娱乐部产品开发和运作的副总裁Marc Petit 先生对话。由于我和他们是口头对话（而不是文字的），所以我概要而言许多问题的答案。

I wanted to start with the basics. Why exactly did Autodesk acquire Alias? My exact question was

译文  我希望从基本问题开始：究竟是为什么Autodes要收购 Alias?对这个疑问我是这样提问的：

"It is apparent by looking at the revenue sources of Autodesk and Alias, that the entertainment divisions are only a small portion of the respective company revenues. Is it fair to say that this acquisition was more about the industrial design, automotive, market and technology acquisition and less about how to mix Maya and Max?"

译文: 很显然，从Autodesk and Alias收入的来源上看，娱乐部门的收入只占很少的一块，所以可以直接的说此次收购的目的更多的是工业设计、汽车、市场和技术 ，而较少是希望混合Maya和Max?

The answer was not what I expected. Dave noted that the majority of Alias revenue came from the entertainment industry. One of the major reasons for the acquisition was not something I had posed in my question, but was about the synergies that could be created through both the high end film market where Maya and the Discreet product line (Inferno/Flame, Fire/Smoke, Lustre) are at the heart of many industry leading production pipelines in film, high end post and visual effects. Similarly, many game companies have built hybrid pipelines where 3dsmax works in conjunction with either Maya or Motionbuilder. According to Alias and Autodesk the variety of clients that use Maya or 3ds Max use them for different reasons throughout their pipelines or choose to use one over the other because they fit their needs more adequately

译文   然而答案超出我的预想。Dave (Alias)指出Ailas的收入主要是从娱乐业来的。收购的主要原因不在我提问中列出的原因中，而是Maya和Discreet 产品线（例如Inferno/Flame, Fire/Smoke, Lustre）是很多电影高端、后期处理和特效工业领先的产品流水线的心脏。类似的，许多游戏公司采用3dsmax和Maya或者Motionbuilder组成了混合的流水线。根据Alias和Autodesk的经验，不同的客户选择一个产品而不是另外一个产品是因为那一个更加符合他们的需要。

Ok, but aren t Maya and 3ds Max directly in competition? The short answer, No. Not as Autodesk sees it. They feel by owning both products and by changing the product marketing where necessary they can show the differences in the products and let the client decide which is better suited for their needs in each area. Also by focusing on the development synergies of the product they will be able to offer a better work flow between both applications. Maya is on the Mac and Linux for instance, 3ds Max is not. Mac users will therefore choose Maya when deciding which 3d product to buy from Autodesk.

译文  好了，但是Maya和3ds Max 之间不存在直接竞争吗？ 简短的回答是：没有，不想Autodesk 看到的那样（译者注释：这里还是Alias的Dave在回答，Dave认为Maya和3ds max之间没有直接的竞争，而从上下文中可以看出Autodesk则认为Maya和3ds max存在直接竞争，所以从上下文看出Autodesk希望消除它们的直接竞争）。他们（Autodesk） 感觉有必要拥有两个产品并且通过改变两个产品的市场方向，他们可以展示两个产品的不同，并且让客户选择在各自的领域哪一个更适合他们的需要。同样我们的目光聚焦在开发配合上，他们（Autodesk）能够为两个产品提供更好的工作流程。，例如， Maya可以工作在Mac和Linux平台，而3ds Max不能，所以 Mac用户在选择Autodesk的3d产品的时候会选择Maya。

So that got me to my next question before I had a chance to ask it; "will there be a best of both worlds product... a mayax or maxa?". The answer: At least not in the foreseeable future (product lines are only planned out for 3 years and there is no plan for that to happen during that time). They made it clear and emphasized this point. "we will maintain separate development teams, make no changes to resource commitment, funding the development of each product separately while moving forward. no changes whatsoever". They will "remain separate and focus on interoperability" to make things work. Marc joked about hoping to see a 3ds Max version 20 and a maya v20 -- although it was a bit far out to give me a commitment to! He also stated "By sharing designs we will be able to adopt similar representations and metadata in both packages which will help information flow much better throughout the production pipeline. For example; we could make sure that rendering and compositing happens in the same color space or enable material representations and complex animation constructs to flow freely between packages. As demonstrated by the delivery of the Vault with 3ds Max 8, our customers will benefit from many of the collaboration and workflow technologies that Autodesk is developing in other market verticals."

译文：所以当我有机会提问的时候，我就想到了我的下一个问题：会不会有一个最好的产品：一个叫做 Mayax  或者 maxa的东西？ 回答是：至少在现在可预知的将来（软件产品开发计划只计划 3 年，至少在这一段时间不会出现这个计划）。他们（Autodes和Alias）很清晰的表达并且强调这一点。“我们会保持分离的开发团队，对两个产品的资源和资金都不会改变，无论什么都不会变。它们会保持独立并且致力于互用性。Autodes的Marc开玩笑说希望看到 3ds max 20和Maya 20，但是这个太遥远了以至于不能看作是一个承诺。他同时宣称：采用共享的设计，我们可以在两个产品中采用相似的表达方法和元数据，这样有助于流水线的信息流。举例来说，我们可以让渲染和合成采用相同的色彩空间，或者让材质表现和复杂动画创建自由在不同软件之间传递。”

Dave brought up a recent acquisition in Autodesk to use as a comparison. He pointed out that when Autodesk acquired Revit for the architecture space users felt it was in direct competition with Architectural Desktop a product they already owned. "Both teams remained intact, both products remain separate, and grow separately still today". This is a perfect example of a sucessful implementation of just this concept in the 3d space.

译文  Dave以Autodes的最近一个收购案为例作为比较，他指出，当Autodesk收购Revit的时候，建筑界用户感觉和他们已经拥有的Autodesk 建筑软件Architecture Desktop 直接冲突。“两个团队都保持完整无缺，两个产品保持分离，并且直到今天各自都在成长。这是应用这个收购理念成功实施的一个完美的例子，3d 界也一样。

Realistically, we see this all the time in other industries. Just look up how many competing companies Pepsi Co owns. We, in the 3d community, are just so used to software being merged when we hear acquisition we all jumped a bit soon. I guess those Softimage/Microsft and Alias/Wavefront days stay close in our memory as 3d users.

实际上，我们总是可以在其他的工业界也看到这样的例子。只要看一下百事可乐拥有多少相互竞争的企业，就可以了。我们在3d领域，只要听到软件收购我们就跳起来，看来是太着急了。我想当年Softimage /Microsoft和Alias /Wavefront 合并还停留在3d用户的记忆里。

They tell me that both 3ds Max and Maya have seen great sales growth over the past year but the growth has been in complimentary areas. They are confident that by owning both products not only can they invest more in the 3d space but create new work flows, share work flows, and integrate better open source standards. Marc continued; "Having the industry s best portfolio of creative tools under one company will lead us to invest more and faster into these applications. We will be able to bridge some existing gaps into the current production workflow, offering solutions from pre-visualization, to production, post-production and mastering. FBX, a freely available toolkit, will be at the heart of our interoperability strategy. Autodesk and Alias share the vision of an open, connected production environment based on industry standards."

译文：他们告诉我，3ds max和Maya在过去的一年都获得了很大的销售增长，但是是在各自相应的领域。他们有信心，拥有两个产品，他们就不仅可以在3d领域作更多的投资，而且可以创造新的工作流程，共享工作流程，并且在打开标准的源文件整合的更好。Autodesk的Marc进一步说：在拥有了业界最好的创造工具之后，我们将在这些软件上投资更多更快。我们能够将现有的工作流程之间的隔阂填平，从预览到生产，从后期处理到控制，我们都可以提供一个解决方案。FBX，一个 免费的工具包，将会是我们协同工作地核心 。Autodesk和Alias将会共享一个美好远景：一个开放的可以互联地基于工业标准的产品环境。

Understanding clearly that each product will remain separate we can get back to looking to the future of 3ds Max and Maya separately. Many 3ds Max users have expressed their concerns to me off-line. So I asked: "Max users have been awaiting a new rewrite, but they are also very invested into the 3ds Max paradigm and work flow. Will there be another Max rewrite or will there ultimately be a new product that combines the best features of Maya and Max?" Marc explained that with the recent restructuring of Discreet and movement of the 3ds Max development team to Montreal they have been able to really focus on the outstanding issues and tune up performance and work flow without the need for a rewrite. "3ds Max 8 is a gigantic step forward in performance" Marc stated, and referenced the extremely positive response they have been getting from their beta sites. "The Montreal team has focused heavily on development".

译文 ：当理解了每个产品都会保持独立，我们在回到3ds max和maya各自的前途这个问题上。很多3ds max用户对我表达了他们关注，所以我问：Max用户期待一个重新改写，但是他们同样在3ds max 上花了很多投资和工作流 。会有另外一次Max被重写吗，或者会有一个超级的软件融合了3ds max和maya的长处吗 ？ Marc解释说最近discree 被重组，并且3ds max开发组迁移到蒙特利尔，他们能够真正的关注这一次杰出的发布，调整软件性能和工作流，而不需要内核重写。“3ds Max 8 在性能大大前进了一步”，Marc说，从Beta用户的正面回应来看，蒙特利尔团队已经真正集中精力在开发上面了。

With Autodesk s deeper pockets the Alias divisions should be able to see more budget for R&D and by sharing intellectual property both divisions should be able to develop their products in ways not possible in the past. The bottom line; there will be no Mayax or Maxa in the foreseeable future. There will be no mixed team, no one product development team taking over the other s plans. There will be no major changes to the future of our products as we ve seen them aside from working with the suite of Autodesk products much more seamlessly. They will share intellectual property and focus on interoperability not only between the 3d products but with their existing 2d lines. At the end of the day Autodesk will profit whether a buyer chooses Maya or 3ds Max, and maybe in some cases a client will choose both where in the past they would not have.

译文 ：随着Autodesk将Alias掌握在口袋里，Alias能够看到能够的研究和开发投资预算，随着共享知识产权，两个部门都可以以过去不能看到的速度开发。有一个底线是：在可预知的将来，将绝对不会有一个Mayax或者maxa出现。将不会有混合团队，也没有一个团队会接受另外一个的计划。将来我们的产品将不会有重大的变化，除了他们将会配合的更加天衣无缝之外。他们将会共享知识产权，以便不仅能够在3d 产品之间互用和协同工作，而且和一个2d的产品线之间也是这样。最终有一天，无论用户购买Maya或者3ds max，Autodesk都将获利 ，也许有些时候他们两个都买呢。

Regardless of whether or not you think this is a smart business move for either party, I think Maya and Max users can all rest a little easier knowing 3ds Max will remain 3ds Max and Maya will remain Maya...

译文：不管你认为这是否是一个明智的商业交易与否，我认为，Maya和3ds max用户可以放轻松，3ds max  将还是  3ds max，而 Maya将还是 Maya  ………