The age of acquisitions & mergers
Is it the beginning of the end for small & innovative companies?
WORDS BY PAUL HATTON
The 3D industry is no stranger to small companies being swallowed up by giant monolithic corporations. We’ve seen it time and again. Maybe the most prolific example is Autodesk – this multinational software company has made a huge number of acquisitions over its 40-year history, and this focused effort to acquire so many companies certainly has its impact on the industry.
The more notable examples for Autodesk were when they bought Maya in 2006, Mudbox in 2007 and Avid Softimage in 2008. These three in such a short period of time made Autodesk the owner of a range of packages that set them apart as the leading provider of 3D digital content creation software. They went from being one of the players, with 3ds Max as their main offering, to being the owner of a broad range of the 3D packages on the market at the time. It was game-changing.
Another company that has made the headlines for acquisitions and mergers is Maxon, the developer of Cinema 4D. Not satisfied with this package, they acquired Redshift in 2019, merged with Red Giant in 2020 and earlier this year, in 2022, they acquired Pixologic Inc. and with it ZBrush. The Maxon family of products is becoming increasingly formidable.
We could mention many significant acquisitions in the world of 3D, but this all begs the question of how this is affecting not only the industry itself, but also the 3D community that uses these tools. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons before discussing the impact on the industry and its community more broadly.
ADVANTAGES
One of the immediate benefits to larger companies buying other software is that those applications end up better and quicker. With most applications now running subscription pricing models, this means that you’ll get any improvements included within your monthly/annual fee. Companies are always trying to stay ahead of their competitors, so are keen to keep their offerings ahead of the curve when it comes to new features and technological developments. Utilising the hard work put in by other companies enables them to deliver more improved software in a fraction of the time.