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Escargot
普通会员
Posts: 299
From:Sydney
发表时间：2002-5-8 22:26:25
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找到一篇文章,大家看看.
(http://www.cgimag.com/news/1303C001.shtml)
My Oh Maya- by Andy Stout
13 March 2002
The news on March 8 that Alias|Wavefront was
closing
two of its US development offices and relocating staff
to its Toronto HQ almost caused listserv meltdown over
the following weekend, with a cracking blamestorm
being unleashed and all sorts of rumours whizzing
through the ether.
Accusations were that Alias was alternately turning into
a Microsoft-wannabee or was a sinking ship; that Seattle
and San Diego - the two offices in question - were responsible
for all the cool stuff in Maya which was going to fall
apart without them, that relocation allowances were
derisory and that founder member Mark Sylvester had
resigned in protest (which turned out to be true).
One particularly hyperbolic post doing the rounds
concluded 'Maya is dead...R.I.P'.
All good entertaining stuff, which Alias is understandably
more than keen to rebut. "I think we'd be pretending
if we acted as thought the economic downturn hadn't affected
our business," comments Bob Bennett, general manager Maya
products. "It's affected us differently in different markets,
but the most efficient way for us to run our company is
to have a consolidated R&D facility in Canada.
There are also less quantifiable benefits; being able
to have the animation team and the modelling team look across
the table face to face, being able to call informal meetings,
meet people in the hall…that type of thing."
With Discreet recently pulling its development back
over the 49th parallel to take advantage of the relatively
low costs in Canada, the country is probably the hub of
the 3D world right now. About 60 employees out of a global
workforce of 500 - the company declines to say how many
are development staff - are affected by the move, with Bennett
also saying there are plans to recruit and beef up the
Toronto operation.
As to the accusation that the only good stuff in Maya
came out of San Diego, Bennett refutes that utterly,
suggesting the idea is just probing at scar tissue left over
from the original Alias and Wavefront merger.
Development work on v4.5, currently in beta, therefore
continues unaffected. "The development agenda for
the next stage is well-defined and, I think, well in hand," he says.
In a fairly measured German radio interview with Maximillian Schönherr,
the departing Sylvester however accused the company of
becoming a market-centric, volume business. Bennett disagrees
with this portrayal, though he does say "When you
cross the 10s of 1000s threshold [and the company has
had 80,000 plus registering interest in the Maya Personal
Learning Edition] you do need to analyse how you interact
with that constituency and you can't talk to everyone of
those people at once.
Perhaps more interestingly, Sylvester also let slip that
some of the coding work on the Mac port was done in India,
though Bennett stresses that it's a fully-fledged development
operation over there, not simply some remote porting lab.
With 60 percent of current PLE downloads being for the Mac,
chance is the coders are going to be busy in the future too.
Bennett unsurprisingly denies the persistent rumour that Apple
will announce at NAB it's buying Alias from current owners SGI,
but does make a bold claim for the growth of Maya PLE, predicting
that a middle-market between the current full price software
and the current free offering will start to drive the whole 3D industry
"Every time we've tried to predict how many people will be
interested in it, our estimates have been blown out of
the water," he says. "At this point though I'd predict
that we'll have 200,000 PLE users within a year, and that's
a big number - one that affects the entire market."
sbjatq2002
普通会员
Posts: 30
From:广州
发表时间：2002-5-9 0:43:21
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3月8日的消息，最近ALIAS/WAVEFRONT关闭了在美国的两个研发机构，并重组了在多伦多的总部，这些举止差点了导致了（ALIAS）在接下来
周末的崩溃，于是在网上开始各种对其不利的批语和遥传。
有遥传说，ALIAS除非被MICROSOFT收购（原文MICROSOFT-WANNABE），要么从此消失；在SEATTLE和SAN DIEGO的两个对MAYA有重大意义的研发机构
解散，总部的重组，这些决定一直被MAYA的创使人之一MARK SYLVESTER所反对（这最后造成了既成事实，MARK离开ALIAS），）甚至有人在（网上贴子）不客气地
指出，MAYA已经死亡……
面对流言，ALIAS值得理解地并没有针锋相对，“我想我们不能再装做业务没有受到经济衰退所影响，”任MAYA总管的BOB BENNETT这样说，
“这些事在不同的市场对我们都有影响，现在我们唯一能做的就是稳固在加拿大一个的R&D开发小组（？），这当然也不会有
很大的成效，不过今后我们的动画组和建模组终于可以面对面地坐在一起，交流信息……就这样”
正像DISCREET最近收回了在全球的49条开发线，以换来在加拿大相对低的成本……这个国家可能已经是3D世界的中心。500名雇员中
（ALIAS拒绝说出实际的数目）有60名在这次事件中受到了影响（截员？--译者），BENNETT同样也说，有计划招收新的开发人员，以加强
多伦多的运作。
针对有遥传说，在SAN DIEGO的机构是MAYA最好的开发机构，BENNETT断然否定了这种说法，说这是对MAYA在一系列事件之后被外界的恶意中伤，
而正在进行MAYA4.5BETA版的开发并没有受到影响“开发下一个版本的计划已经制定好，而且进行的很顺利，我想”他说。
在一次正式的德国广播采访中，SYLVESTER否定了对了MAYA已经成为（3D）市场的中心，有宠大的业务这些不正确的描述。但他同时说，
可以估计到这种影响，有80，000用户注册了MAYA的个人学习版（我有体会，那段时间几乎访问不了ALIAS的网站--译者），你甚至
都不能同他们交互，不能和他们每一个说话。
SYLVESTER甚至透露出，一些由印度的机构完成的MAC版本MAYA的源码，是重要而完备的，而不是想象中MAYA在外面的一个不重要工作小组。
由于百分之六十的MAYA PLE（个人学习版）的注册用户使用的是MAC，今后的开发工作会更加繁忙（开发MAC版），BENNETT否定了APPLE
将会在全国广播会议中宣布收购SGI的ALIAS下属公司的遥传。但他并没有更多地评论正在增长的MAYA PLE的苹果机用户所带来的影响，，他预言
，占据主流市场的MAYA商业版和免费的PLE将会对整个3D工业带来重要的导向作用。
"每次我们预料MAYA的增长用户（PLE？），我们都会失败，，不过我现在预测我们在今年内会有200，000个PLE用户，嗯，无论如何，这是个宠大用数目
----足以影响整个市场” SYLVESTER如是说。
TRANSLATE BY SBJATQ2002
