autodesk! how many ways can you piss me off?

[super gnu]

they just stopped doing upgrade versions. and i cancelled my subscription this year. apparently its to help their customers. so if i want 2014 now i have to pay full price, despite having 2013.



id use strong language but this is a family forum :P

[super gnu]

ok so having actually stopped fuming and read the email properly, i see they are discontinuing upgrades from this time *next year* . hmm. still gits.

[chrisjacks21]

ok so having actually stopped fuming and read the email properly, i see they are discontinuing upgrades from this time *next year* . hmm. still gits.

I got that email 'helping customers' my arse. They are basically forcing everyone onto the subscription model.

Ironically, we have just gone back over to subscription, so it hasn't peed me off quite as much as it would previously

[kalamazandy]

The answer to your first question is All of them. They can piss you off All of the ways. haha
I'm right there with Adobe as well.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

We should start community kickstarter and buy off AD + Adobe. They will make our live a hell in 10 years.

[kalamazandy]

that Would be funny, but probably not reasonable to do. Although, if it gained a lot of press, they would hate it. And it might get some things to change. But do backers get their money back if the project isn't funded? If so, it might actually get something done. Petitions and things of that sort are basically worthless. But something like this lets them know, their customer's money is where their mouth is and they are ready to put it somewhere else.

So you ask AD or Adobe, maybe just do one at a time, how much it would cost to sell their software. You can't purchase the entire company because both are publicly traded. So you'd just have to come up with majority stock. Although, you Might get enough traction to get someone on the board. Anyway, see how much it would cost, then put that as a goal on kickstarter. You'd have my backing. Although, I'd either want the software for life as a reward (or something like that), or my money returned at the end. That downside to kickstarter is you can technically just decide Not to deliver anything at the end and just walk away with all the money. Of course, there are other legal bits put in place to keep you from doing that. But really the person/company, could just walk away, and it could be years before anyone saw their money again, if at all.

I'm sure you were kind of joking, but it's not a bad idea. I'd at least do the, "pledge $5 dollars to give them a piece of your mind. We'll add all these up at the end and donate licenses to education if successful, or donate a lump sum to some sort of agreed upon art based charity."

[super gnu]

youd need the biggest kickstarter in history to make them even answer an email hehe.

[vlado]

We should start community kickstarter and buy off AD + Adobe.

Someone has to agree to sell them in the first place...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

that Would be funny, but probably not reasonable to do. Although, if it gained a lot of press, they would hate it. And it might get some things to change. But do backers get their money back if the project isn't funded? If so, it might actually get something done. Petitions and things of that sort are basically worthless. But something like this lets them know, their customer's money is where their mouth is and they are ready to put it somewhere else.

So you ask AD or Adobe, maybe just do one at a time, how much it would cost to sell their software. You can't purchase the entire company because both are publicly traded. So you'd just have to come up with majority stock. Although, you Might get enough traction to get someone on the board. Anyway, see how much it would cost, then put that as a goal on kickstarter. You'd have my backing. Although, I'd either want the software for life as a reward (or something like that), or my money returned at the end. That downside to kickstarter is you can technically just decide Not to deliver anything at the end and just walk away with all the money. Of course, there are other legal bits put in place to keep you from doing that. But really the person/company, could just walk away, and it could be years before anyone saw their money again, if at all.

I'm sure you were kind of joking, but it's not a bad idea. I'd at least do the, "pledge $5 dollars to give them a piece of your mind. We'll add all these up at the end and donate licenses to education if successful, or donate a lump sum to some sort of agreed upon art based charity."

I'd vote Vlado to do it(my brain would fail with all the stock and other stuff ) . If it fails take the money put up for good R&D In vray But like you said, majority of stock so we can dictate rules and policy.

[kalamazandy]

well, not quite. Publicly traded companies don't Have to agree to sell.
One party would own the majority shares and could cause a change in management. which by itself would probably be a great start. You could also have jobs cut, and focus jobs on the actual software instead of marketing, and more wasteful things like that. Do you Really need to market a This could also allow for a hostile takeover without the need for a bank's approval. Keeping a software inside the company, the majority stakeholder could sway the opinion of the others and bring the software private again, which leads to faster innovation, and sharing of information without legal issues. I think that would be a good start anyway, without having to Buy the company. You just have to buy the Majority of the company.
Do you Really need to market a software that has it's own verb? Probably not.

[Neilg]

You just have to buy the Majority of the company.

They have 225 million shares currently held and they're trading at $52.

e: that's just under 6 billion dollars. for half of autodesk.
best of luck!

[kalamazandy]

Majority isn't equal to half. It just means more than anyone else. If the current majority holder is 20% (a more likely number for Autodesk since it's actually multiple companies smashed into one), then you'd only need 21%. So, you know...something like...2.5 billion dollars. Of course, at 6 billion dollars it's undisputed. But for the kickstarter, you could set the goal just at majority. lol

Everyone knows this is just a joke right? It Would be funny, and could possibly cause an upset in the system though. I'm not sure anyone has ever tried to crowdsource the purchase of a company. And since it's publicly traded, it would get lots of press if it got even above 100,000.

[Neilg]

I know you were joking, I just wanted to see how massive the number was

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I wasnt joking... I'd totally go for it and maybe I will if I do more research I suppose. Its not easy task we would have to set up a company that target would be to listen to people and then annoy every1 at the big AD table. + lots more research. But I think I would go after Adobe 1st after this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaR2jR-RpYo I'm sure it would not be too difficult to email some press companies and get them on board with press... I mean entire Australia will be up for it =D

[bardo]

I know it's not the same thing but some forums ahead from the "Vray for Max" there is a possible solution...

I'm doing the step to change my workflow and it's not as bad as it could appear... I know it doesn't fit the needs of everyone... but someone could find it useful.







These were done with Cycles render engine but I'm waiting to have the 3.0 for Max to begin the switching to Vray for Blender without any money costs (just time consuming costs)