Industry News

Autodesk announced a restructuring plan that will reduce staffing levels in the near-term by approximately 10%, or approximately 925 positions, and will consolidate certain leased facilities. The company expects that this will result in additional cost savings in fiscal year 2017 and beyond, and intends to reinvest a portion of the savings in areas critical to its platform and business model transition.According to Autodesk’s CEO Carl Bass, the restructuring “is not related to anything we are seeing in the macro-economic environment. We ended fiscal 2016 on a high note with very strong fourth-quarter billings growth and continued demand for our subscription offerings.”The restructuring plan is intended to accelerate the move to the cloud and its transition to a rental-based business model.As of February 1st, Autodesk is offering most of its individual desktop software through rental licensing only. Artists are no longer able to purchase and own individual perpetual licenses of 3DS Max or Maya, for example.It’s interesting to note the context in which these changes are taking place: competing companies in the 3D arena have remained committed to offering perpetual licenses, in some cases providing rental licensing as an option. This is hardly a surprise, as they are the ones who may benefit the most from users disappointed by the licensing changes. The visible trend of artists testing the waters of other 3D applications, including strong growth of Blender and Houdini (among others) seems to signal that the rental-only strategy (along with the discontinuation of Softimage) may be boosting competing software.More on Business Wire