Kommentar von Fxguide

London, UK. January 1st 2009.

The Foundry announced today that effective immediately, the company is significantly reducing prices on plug-ins for Autodesk® advanced systems, as it is no longer part of the Autodesk® Authorised Developer Network programme and can no longer guarantee continued development or support. The decision follows notification by Autodesk that they will not renew their development license with The Foundry, citing competitive issues. The decision ends Autodesk’s® twelve-year development relationship with The Foundry and its users.

Autodesk® have provided a non-binding, verbal assurance to The Foundry that may be sufficient to enable The Foundry to continue supporting Autodesk® plug-in products (Sparks). Due to the uncertain nature of this assurance, The Foundry can only guarantee ‘best effort’ support to their Autodesk® plug-in customers at this time. The Foundry is also unable to predict whether it will be able to develop or support future releases on Autodesk® systems platforms.

The Foundry, formed in 1996, was the first developer of Sparks on Discreet Logic's® Flame® systems and has continued to bring its Academy Award® winning technology to digital artists through a variety of highly regarded and popular plug-in products including Tinder, Furnace and Keylight.

Chief Scientist and Co-Founder, Simon Robinson comments: “The Foundry was originally established to develop Tinder on Discreet Logic® so it is particularly sad that this relationship is altering so significantly. We’d like to thank our loyal Autodesk® customers who helped us build The Foundry into the successful company it is today.”

CEO, Bill Collis, adds: “Our customers always come first and we will, of course, continue to support them to the best of our ability. However, without a legal agreement in place, we cannot guarantee how long we will be able to continue to provide this service. Many of our Autodesk® customers are key industry players who have strongly influenced our development path and we are committed to keeping them informed about any changes in service or development.”

Notes to Customers:
The Foundry cannot guarantee to make any new builds after 1st January 2009. Bug fixing or upgrades to future versions of Autodesk® systems may not be possible.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Why have you reduced your prices so significantly?
Due to the lack of any formal agreement with Autodesk®, The Foundry is currently unable to guarantee a desirable level of support to their Autodesk® customers or guarantee development of software for future Autodesk® releases. Therefore, The Foundry feels it is only fair that this is reflected in a significant price change.

Why can you no longer guarantee support?
In order to support Autodesk® customers effectively, The Foundry is reliant on Autodesk’s® provision of current and historic software versions. At this time we have no Autodesk® licenses and are not clear when that situation will change, or under what terms.

What is the ADN (Autodesk® Developer Network)?
The ADN provided The Foundry with the technical access required to develop plug‐in products and provide support to their customers.

Can you continue as normal outside the ADN?
Autodesk® have given The Foundry a verbal assurance of support outside the official programme. However, without any contractual obligation, development would be a big risk for The Foundry. The Foundry is hopeful that some support might be possible, but can make no guarantees.

I bought Autodesk® plug‐ins at full price recently. Where does this leave me?
Please contact sales@thefoundry.co.uk or your personal Foundry sales contact with your specific query and we will respond.

How long will the reduced pricing be available for?
The reduced pricing will be available for the whole of January 2009. It is unclear at this stage whether this offer will be extended.

What does ‘best effort’ support mean?
The Foundry always endeavours to support their customers to the best of their ability and will continue to do so. However, if your query is complex and we do not have software in house that enables us to replicate and try to solve the problem we will be limited in the assistance that we can provide.

What does this change in relationship with Autodesk® mean for The Foundry?
The Foundry has grown considerably since its early days, when Autodesk® plug‐in revenue was fundamental to the business. However, Autodesk® customers still include some of the industry's most influential innovators and The Foundry will work hard to provide them with their technology via other routes if necessary.

What else does The Foundry do?
The Foundry has developed and marketed its highly respected Nuke compositing system with marked success since 2007.
The Foundry’s plug‐ins are also now available on a multitude of other hosts including Shake, Nuke, Fusion, Final Cut Pro, Avid DS, Combustion and After Effects.
The Foundry's large Academy Award©‐winning research team contributes significant advances in image‐processing, both inside Nuke and in new plug‐in technologies such as the stereo‐3D toolset, Ocula.
Together these products have facilitated great visual effects on recent block busters Australia, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Quantum of Solace, The Dark Knight, Prince Caspian, Sweeney Todd; The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, IronMan and many more.

Will I be able to use my Foundry plug‐ins on future versions of Autodesk® systems?
At the current time, The Foundry has no formal agreement with Autodesk® and therefore cannot guarantee to make their Autodesk plug‐ins compatible with future versions. The Foundry hopes very much that an agreement will be reached that enables them to do so.

What plug‐ins does The Foundry make for Autodesk® systems and what do they do?
The Foundry produces 3 plug‐in sets for Autodesk® systems:

Keylight – an industry proven green and blue screen keyer that is particularly efficient where hair and reflections are involved.

Furnace – this set of 40 plug‐ins uses Academy Award© Winning motion estimation technology to solve every day compositing problems such as retiming, degraining, matchgrading and wire removal.

Tinder – is a set of 90 eye candy plug‐ins. Blurs and flares that extend the creative possibilities of your Autodesk® system.

Nähere Informationen und Preise unter info@dreamwalks.com oder +49 (0)89489566-40