So... is realy today the great day ?

[Nightwalker]

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=35604;st art=30

so...... wake up people at Montreal its past 7 already lol

[miga]

Now it made it into this forum too :D Everybody is waiting. It's going to be a long monday (but hopefully a good one ;) )

[Zafar Iqbal]

Will be a very long monday :o

[Helli]

I hate Softimage for this !

Why don't they simply post: "Sorry guys announcement won't be today" or "yea just wait some more hours".

argggggg

[Heinerich]

Hm. CNN just reported spontaneous protest marches in front of the SI headquartes..

http://www.malstrom.eu/zeug/demonstrations.jpg

[Nightwalker]

Lol, i love the hoodie must die sign :hammer:

[Nightwalker]

I hate Softimage for this !

Why don't they simply post: "Sorry guys announcement won't be today" or "yea just wait some more hours".

argggggg

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=165 ;)

[patrick.n]

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=165 ;)



Exactly. It's gone 9 already.

[Nightwalker]

StephenBlair is online ! get im :2guns:!!!! Make im talk !!!!! :devil2: :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[StephenBlair]

As far as I know, nobody from Softimage ever said there was going to be an announcement. Not in public, not on a forum, not on any mailing list.

Bernard Lebel on xsibase said someone told him something, that's not really official now is it? ;-)

[Helli]

Its not official, but does that mean he isn't right ;)

[Heinerich]

He spoke of a reliable source, which is something completely different than "someone" :wink:

[MartinWeber]

I have heard from a super reliable source (well, the mom of the guy who cleans the waste bin in the SI kitchen) that MS has bought SI again and will integrate moondust as feature in Excel and release it on a Thursday. But hey, what do I know? ;)

[GeneCrucean]

Bernard spoke of a reliable source... but who said that Bernard is a reliable source? :D

[Heinerich]

He ain't but that's hardly the point ;)

[Nightwalker]

They've just deleted the thread at xsibase....

[miga]

At least it was an exciting morning :)

[Nightwalker]

Well... I wouldn't mind some explanation.... wen I read someting from an administrator of the biggest xsi community forum, I tend to believe-it... Shouldnt I ?

[Heinerich]

I tend to believe-it... Shouldnt I

Never trust any source besides the official ones.

[Oz Adi]

When I read Bernard's reply on XSIBASE, it was pertty
obvious to me, he was cinic about that...

Maybe I am wrong (I wish I am) but I would'nt expect anything today, nor next monday :)

[kim aldis]

As far as I know, nobody from Softimage ever said there was going to be an announcement. Not in public, not on a forum, not on any mailing list.

Bernard Lebel on xsibase said someone told him something, that's not really official now is it? ;-)

You'd think he'd know better though, wouldn't you. If you're going to say something like that you need to be pretty sure of your facts, especially if you're a moderator and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what kind of storm is likely to kick off.

[Nightwalker]

Bernard explained:

First of all, if my statement caused grief, despair, anger, or any bad feeling,s please accept my apologies. That was not the intention http://www.xsibase.com/forum/YaBBImages/smiley.gif

I wanted to show that anyone who look like a "representative" of the XSI community or someone important can make a statement on a forum that look serious, but is in fact is complete bollocks, and many people will believe right away. To be honest, I'm surprised my statement was not much challenged though! http://www.xsibase.com/forum/YaBBImages/shocked.gif

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=35683;st art=13

[luceric]

There isn't going to be any XSI 7-related announcement in the near future.
We're just not at that place right now.

[Helli]

There isn't going to be any XSI 7-related announcement in the near future.
We're just not at that place right now.

Thx for this info.

[coolroy]

That is fair enough.

[Helli]

This is something wich I would have loved to hear months ago on xsibase. Something like "Sorry XSI community but actually the release won't be in the near future, we hope to get it ready at the end of the 2nd quarter" or something like this.

At least in our company (we are switching to XSi in near future) XSI 7 is a must because we are working a lot with particle, fluid and stuff like that. So we need to know if we are able to create the same effects in XSI7 in an comparable amount of time wich we can create with dreamscape/afterburn and fume.

[mi_echo_log.txt]

At least in our company (we are switching to XSi in near future) XSI 7 is a must because we are working a lot with particle, fluid and stuff like that. So we need to know if we are able to create the same effects in XSI7 in an comparable amount of time wich we can create with dreamscape/afterburn and fume.

If that is the case I would talk to your reseller, who might be able to answer specific questions like that.

[Atyss]

Bernard spoke of a reliable source... but who said that Bernard is a reliable source? :D

Precisely my point. Thanks man. I'm not Softimage!

I apologized on xsibase for the heat, I will do here as well. My intention was cynical, and I assumed it was going to be taken as such. I was wrong. It will never happen again.

We will make an official statement about what happened. Not about XSI 7, but about these threads, of course ;-)


Cheers
Bernard

[Delirium]

Thanks for that reply on the Softimage part. I hope it is a sign of maturity on their behalf as it is a rare thing nowadays among software developers. The last several versions brought NOTICABLE features that are pretty much usefull. I really can't say the same thing about competition that releases new versions as if it was a race and giving gimmicks instead fo real features worth upgrading.

[jamination]

Thanks for that reply on the Softimage part. I hope it is a sign of maturity on their behalf as it is a rare thing nowadays among software developers. The last several versions brought NOTICABLE features that are pretty much usefull. I really can't say the same thing about competition that releases new versions as if it was a race and giving gimmicks instead fo real features worth upgrading.

I agree with this, I would also like to add the idea of maintenance is a joke if you don't come out with something every year. I am not sure how Soft handles upgrades as I have always been on maintenance before this upcoming release. I have heard in other threads they force you to get maintenance on top of the upgrade fee, I am not sure if this is true or not. That I would have a problem with considering their release schedule is often 18 months.

Phil

[janimatic]

i understand your point about maintenance and updates,
we need constant bug fixes and workflow enhancement, that is the job of 2 dev teams.
A 3rd team build the next core features and that takes at least 18 monthes if not 24.
I want xsi 7 to be rock solid when availabel to a wide audience.
Softimage simply does not want to do the same mistake twice.
And i want to get access to the dailly builds -fixes and enhancements-, and to the xsi 7 beta in progress.
Here we didn't renew our maintenance because we've got no reply about some problems, but we are ready to reconsider maintenance for the future if we get more feedback, if the dev crew becomes bigger, if we get daily builds, if the major reported bugs are worked on quickly.
I guess the team was over busy and there is already more people working on it now.
Please take this opportunity right now, autodesk clients are running away, hire more senior developpers, hire more researchers..

best regards

[BillRoberts]

Couple of comments on this thread.

In terms of announcing anything that we are going to do in the future – as a public company – we can’t. It’s really that simple – if you want to read more on the rules KPMG has an overview here http://www.us.kpmg.com/microsite/attachments/2005/SoftwareRevRecognitionBook2005.pdf . In terms of releasing any software and our perspective on stability / quality – any release that may or may not occur in the future will be released when the beta test community tells us that it is ready for production and not before.

In terms of the value of maintenance – our goal is to offer three levels of service after the purchase:

-All Customers: Fixes to bugs in the software in a timely manner (i.e. a X.01 release)

-Maintenance Customers: Previously mentioned Fixes as well as any value add new features that may be provided during the release cycle (i.e. a X.5 release)

-Escalation Customers: Customer / Pipeline specific builds delivered by our SWAT Team

If you’ve had a bad experience in the past – drop me a line I’d like to hear about it and get a conversation going with our Global Head of Escalation, Support and Services – we aim to be the most responsive company with the most powerful 3D software in the industry, anywhere we’re not delivering on this – we will address it.

Bill Roberts
Director of Product Management - Softimage

[Heinerich]

Bill,

thanks for lighting this up a bit.. I must admit that this is the first time I hear about that "escalation" level.. in fact, we were under maintencance for almost 10 years and I was under the impression that these things are actually for the maintenance customers.

We quit the maintenance contract with the release of 6.0 because we felt 100% like jamination mentioned in his post. Over the years we never received any QFE or something similar and response to our issues was scarce. There was a felt gap between "money spent" and "support received", in fact it was faster and easier to get support on the mailing list by softimage staff for free than mailing issues to support@..

Now it's good to hear that you are working to become the most responsive company, since that is something Autod*** really doesnt provide. For instance: How do you become an escalation-level customer? Is that a special maintenance contract or does this require a certain amount of seats purchased?

Regards,
from a brave customer ;)

[3DDave]

I agree about not wanting maintenance as no service packs were made to maintenance customers that were not also made available to regular customers. Frankly if SI wants to sell more upgrades they need to actually sell an upgrade instead of maintenance. Go to their store and NO upgrades are for sale. At least Autodesk sells upgrades in addition to maintenance.