Autodesk and The Foundry resume development relationship: price of discounted Foundry plug-ins to return to normal on 14 February
If you‘re a subscriber to 3D World, you may just have received your copy of issue 114, complete with a lead story discussing Autodesk‘s decision to terminate The Foundry‘s membership of its developer network, citing competition between The Foundry‘s Nuke compositing software and its own Toxik.
In response, The Foundry slashed the prices of its Tinder, Furnace and Keylight plug-ins for Autodesk products by 80 per cent, on the grounds that it could “no longer guarantee their continued development or support”.
This morning, we received word from The Foundry that the two companies have resolved the dispute through a custom development arrangement of the type discussed in the article. Customers have until 14 February to purchase the plug-ins at the discounted rate before they revert to their original prices. Full details below.
PRESS RELEASE
London, UK. January 28th 2009 – The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk) a leading developer of visual effects, image-processing and compositing software, announced today that, under an exclusive arrangement with Autodesk®, it can once again offer support for the Autodesk Sparks range of its Tinder, Furnace and Keylight products.
The Foundry had previously been winding down support and development for plug-ins on Autodesk System products following Autodesk’s termination of The Foundry’s Authorised Developer Network programme membership at the end of 2008.
The Foudry’s CEO, Bill Collis, commented: “We are delighted that a workable solution has been reached. Since The Foundry’s inception, we have worked very closely with our Autodesk customers to develop tools that artists find genuinely useful. It would have been extremely sad to be forced to abandon this community when sales demand for our Sparks are at an all time high. We can now confidently look forward to continuing these long-established relationships.”
Chief Scientist and Co-Founder, Simon Robinson, added: “Since our January 1st press release about the ADN termination, we’ve had enthusiastic support from our clients which has been immensely inspiring. We’re very pleased to say that our maintenance releases for 2009 have returned to our schedules along with planned new product releases from The Foundry’s Academy Award-winning team.”
The huge Autodesk Plug-In price reductions will continue until Feb 14th 2009 when prices will revert to normal. All products purchased during the price-cut will be fully supported.
