Last month Montreal-headquartered Autodesk Media & Entertainment (formerly Discreet)–the makers of the popular Flame, Inferno, Fire and Smoke editing and compositing systems–restructured its operations to prepare for the next chapter in the company’s history. Key was that these moves marked the company’s completed transition of its systems products (i.e. Flame and other aforementioned systems) from an SGI-platform product line to a commodity (Linux) based systems model.
As part of this restructuring, the company also initiated the layoffs of roughly 30 staffers in its systems unit. Some of those affected were faces and names that commercial customers knew and frequently worked with, including Product Specialist Martin Helie, Head of R&D Pierre Bouchard and Director of Project Management Bill Roberts.
Autodesk Media & Entertainment VP Marc Petit explained that these moves are a continuation of the company’s direction. “The migration to the PC is having an impact on our business model and also on our financials,” he said.
“We had to make a bunch of changes in operations in the back end. There is a layer of complexity that has disappeared with the PC. That’s one of the driving forces. Another is we changed our structure eliminating a layer of management.” (See this week’s HD Essentials for more details on Autodesk).
Wait and see The restructuring has prompted quite a lot of discussion in the community of post and visual effects houses that largely rely on Discreet’s system products.
Most interviewed by SHOOT said that they were going to take a wait and see approach.
The shift to Linux was generally praised as a smart and necessary move as commodity hardware is becoming more powerful and more affordable, and as a result many in the post business were shifting from SGI platforms–which ran the aforementioned Autodesk products. But postings on the Flame user group reflect the fact that these Linux-based versions are still quite young and not without bugs.
Still, these systems have been leaders in the commercial post industry for many years and have a loyal user base. “There is nothing else out there to replace it,” says Mark Szumski, visual effects supervisor/senior visual effects artist at New York-based Click 3X. “You can’t do client sessions work on After Effects. People like the interactivity of Flame. There is still a large gap between desktop and Flame systems.”
“They’ve been a big and solid company for a long time. In terms of interactivity for clients, Flame is second to none,” agrees Vico Sharibini, visual effects supervisor and artist at New York-based RhinoFX. “However the business is changing — we’re doing different projects from film to games. We are looking into different products and technologies.”
Sharibini reserved judgment on Discreet’s direction, explaining, “It depends on what information they will expose in the near future. It will suggest their vision for the future. They’ve got really good products; they need to catch up with some technology the market has adopted.”
Expressing Concern Still, some did go on the record admitting concern. One was New York-based Stitch creative director and Inferno artist Fred Ruckel, a longtime Discreet customer, beta tester and vocal supporter of the tools. “This year, with all the changes, I think they are going to fall apart,” he says, hoping his comments could help prompt constructive dialogue. “This is a company with all these customers to sustain, and probably 80 percent are still on SGI, so at this time next year, everyone will have a defunct machine. What do you do as a company?
“I’m worried because I don’t know where it is going to go,” he relates. “[Discreet’s current products are] on Linux, but [there are bugs]. People on SGI are stuck and have to upgrade, and we know a software-only version of Flame is coming. Right now they run on dual core Linux, but quad core is on the way. So is it wise to upgrade now? What if I make an investment today? Where is money best spent?
“And, with new technology you get problems,” he continues. “SGI versions have the least amount of bugs, they work. With the firing of the systems team, one can only ask, ‘What is going to happen next?'”
Kirk Balden, Flame and Smoke artist at L.A.-based A52, says, “There are executives…and development people that will be missed, who have been with the product almost since the beginning. Those are the people who knew the backbone of the software and we were able to talk to one on one. That’s the worrisome part.”
Sharibini adds, “In a way, we need to reestablish this relationship because the core of the people who developed the product are gone.”
Some see similarities with Avid’s undisputed leadership status in nonlinear editing before Apple came in and offered what many see as a viable alternative.
Some see Apple as a potential threat in compositing as well, as the company has already announced that it is developing a next generation compositing system to replace Shake. “The question is how seriously Apple is going to get into this market,” observes Szumski.
“That will be a big factor in ’07, if Apple gets into Discreet’s territory with a strong compositing system.”
“Adobe is going to be Autodesk’s Apple,” Ruckel predicts. “The creative studio that they released last year [had strong versions of] After Effects and Premiere. This with a video card is a powerful machine.”
“A lot of companies have their eye on this market,” Sharibini says. “Flame is the only game in town, but it is a question of time at this point and a question of what kind of strategy Autodesk takes as a company. The high end and the consumer market will start getting closer and closer and the players in the market at the moment [may be] different from the players that will be there next year. I will be interested to see who the other players will be.”
