DVDs start shipping on the 14th. The web site is referring to downloads. Downloads and physical shipments do not happen at the same time (downloads first, shipments soon after).
Softimage 2010
dhath45
#182
This is the response I got when I inquired about my subscription download:
"Dear David:
Thank you for contacting Autodesk, Inc.
You will not have the download for Autodesk Softimage 2010 until the First Customer Ship occurs. This product has not yet been released, however is due for release some time this month. Once the product is officially released you will have download access within a few days. If a week after the release of Autodesk Softimage 2010 passes and you still do not have download access within Subscription Center please do not hesitate to contact the Autodesk Business Center by replying to this email or calling 1-800-538-6401.
[font=Verdana]Best Regards,
[/font][font=Verdana]Tiffany Griffin
Autodesk Business Center[/font]
[font=Verdana][font=Verdana]
[/font]
[font=Verdana]Original Request
[/font]
[font=Verdana]Hi, I"m currently under subscription until March 2010, but when I check in to subscription to see if my Softimage 2010 upgrade isavailable, allI see is the download for Softimage 7.5. Please have a look at this,Thank you,"[/font]
[/font]So according to this statment, my download won’t be abailable until AFTER the physical product has been released.
xsisupport
#183
Hi David
I’ll follow up on this Monday, but I can tell you that the download is already available for many Subscription customers. My understanding is that some back-end problems resulted in not all Subscription customers getting the download.
And the Softimage downloads were always scheduled to be available before the shipments.
Steve Blair
Team Lead - Softimage Support
Hirazi
#184
Ah, the tried-and-tested “let’s blame it on technical difficulties” defense!!! But if that’s so, a simple “we are experiencing technical difficulties” in reply to a “Business Service Request” would have been nice, don’t you think?
xsisupport
#185
ABC handles support for over a hundred Autodesk products, and in this specific case I believe they have the wrong information. You may not like my explanation, but those are the facts.
Hirazi
#186
Please mr. Blair, let’s not overreact!
The fact, that Autodesk Business Center is misinformed, is NOT MY FAULT. Me pointing this out, shouldn’t make me the bad guy, I would think…
mocaw
#190
It might seem more “fair” to some if they had their subscription extended X amount of time if there was a delay in getting the product to them. If the customer is on subscription and there is a delay of a month then maybe they should have their subscription extended a month?
Otherwise it seems a bit “un-fair” for certain parties to have SI 2010 before others who have payed already for the product IMHO.
Alternatively one would hope, and maybe there already is, a set of “master” license codes that support can use to extend the life of temp download version.
I don’t blame SI support at all for any of this, but to say licensing couldn’t be better would be a farce.
dhath45
#191
No problem Steve. I have no problem with Softimage, it’s Autodesk corporate that’s at fault here. Thanks for following up.
Lone_Deranger
#192
Wow… so two botched up releases in a row? Well done Autodesk. The people responsible for this should come and work in post-production for a while, where late deliveries are simply not an option. Screw up once and you’re looking to pay millions for every day you don’t deliver. (Thus likely putting an entire company out of business).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, why must this whole licensing crap be so terribly convoluted? As the CG industry makes forward strides in leaps and bounds, the process of actually getting the tools you pay for and getting them to work is moving backwards rapidly.
And we all know they don’t do anything to stop (or even slow down) piracy. Instead it serves as a giant roadblock right after you’ve wielded your credit card in honest.
(No doubt it can’t be much fun for support staff either, having to trouble shoot hundreds of cases for victims of a deeply flawed system).
And Mocaw raises a very valid point btw. But good luck trying to get AD to see it that way. Like trying to squeeze blood form a stone.
And where is that upgrade offer for =<7.0.1 owners?? We keep being told to contact our VAR’s. I contacted two, one in the UK and one in NZ, neither of them knew what I was on about. :rolleyes:
luceric
#193
About promotions for upgrades for 7.xx users, there will have more information soon, I expect sometime after Friday September 18th. I am told the VARs indeed do not have the information at this moment.
When Softimage 2010 goes live, you’ll be able to run on a 30 day trial. This will be same build as the shipping version, the only difference is the Flexlm license is good for 30 days only.
ThE_JacO
#194
With Softimage this happened relatively often if it was Soft at issue (IE database messed up or some bureaucratic issue). Even then it was always a very case by case thing, and usually limited to individual mistakes rather than delays that were full customer base wide.
Said that, the fact a few people got a download early means that those people got it early, not that everybody else is late, and the promised date was mid-Sept, so it seems unlikely anybody will get any love this time around.
In general though, I’d say that when people have a complaint or a request that seems legit, they should try to put it forward (through official channels, not by venting in random threads on the internet, before somebody gets the wrong idea 
).
I’ve been close to several companies for quite a few years now, and it isn’t always that bad really. There’s almos always somebody you can talk to, some times you have to persist though before you find them, but in general there’s a lot more than people think that you can get away with.
ThE_JacO
#195
Chill man, if they open it wide on Monday, they are still bang on schedule.
And sorry, when was the last time you saw a big movie delivered on budget and on schedule?
If film vfx shops could go oob for just a few days of delay, then there would be no studios left. We’re one of the few industries where producers formalize contingency plans, delay absorption and overtime schedules before production even begins. I don’t think we should even try and take moral high ground in the regards, particularly not in the southern hemisphere 
ThE_JacO
#198
Which one? The one about windows that hardly mentioned anything XSI related until someone nerdraged on the list and got a jab from me?
All my complaints and concerns are on record in AD too btw, some of them even got addressed over the years 
Lone_Deranger
#199
Internal contingency plans aside (those are a given), I’ve worked on a fair few productions over the past decade (both large and small) where going over budget, and/or over schedule wasn’t an option, for fear of losing clients and contractual ramifications (read financial penalties).
But you’re right though, the official release date was set at the 14th of september. So lets see how “smooth” this one goes.
Hirazi
#200
As I have been told to “chill” already, I’m not sure, if I’m allowed another go at this…
Two things strike me as odd:
- Firstly, as of a few days ago, Softimage 2010 has officially been available for Subscription Customers, they advertise it on the product page at the Autodesk website. They just as well could have waited with this announcement until the official release date, but they didn’t!!!
- Secondly, I for one have gone through official channels, doing exactly what xsisupport suggested in his XSISupport Blog by issuing a “Business Service Request”. The response I got from the Autodesk Business Center didn’t convey the message that they had any idea what I was talking about, hence my overreaction at his comment about back-end problems, as one would expect the ABC would be made aware of them to be able to handle all the “Business Service Requests” he himself asked us to log…
This is not some feeble attempt to stir things up some more, this is a last ditch effort to explain my own actions earlier in this thread…
I didn’t want to sound too harsh… if I did, I sincerely apologize to xsisupport.