The big announcement...

[swamidog]

And lastly, I take a look at a project like Blender, and I think to myself, yup, that's a poster boy for open source... It's a friggen mess...

Bill

http://www.blendernation.com/2012/09...te-award-2012/

Blender Wins 3D World CG ‘Software Update’ Award 2012
Posted on September 7, 2012 by Bart
Blender has won the 3D World CG ‘Software Update’ Award 2012. As far as I can tell, there’s no prize attached to this other than the honor of being recognized by the industry.

About the award:

This award is open to any existing application that has received a sizeable update, introducing useful new features and new technologies to its user base, while maintaining stability and usability.

[White-Light]

Actually, Bill, most of MacOS is open source. All of Android is open source, and is currently outselling the iPhone in every market.

That's all very well but even accepting this, how does this work for Pangolin?

Android can be licensed to phone manufacturers of which there are many queueing up to licence it and no doubt they are willing to pay big money to have it on their phones as they have huge sales turn overs.

In the laser world, DAC manufacturers are few and far between and don't turn over huge profits or volume numbers so where are the large licensing fees going to come from?

Any licensing fee would have to be passed onto the customer. Again with phone companies multi-million sales per year means a small amount of the purchase price is for the software, probably only a few dollars. With low volume DAC sales, the figure would be huge.

Is everyone still going to be singing Open Source Praise if eg A Riya Lite DAC was to cost £4K because of Pangolin licensing?

Lets face it unless massively increased sales occurred, the level of fee would probably result in a retail price of DAC's not dissimilar to Pangolin's current package as no doubt those not willing to pay big money would switch to non Pangolin offerings just as they do now, so what would change? Similar volumes of sales is going to equal similar final pricing if Pangolin is to maintain sales margin so where;'s the advantage to the consumer?

I just don't see the volume in the laser industry to see a open source software and licensing model deliver any price advantage.

[Pangolin]

Sure well to each their own. I'll continue using Apple products including iPhone. I'll continue using products like 3D Studio MAX and Cinema 4D with which movies are made. And I'll continue to sit and wait until there are signs of life that open source can work in the laser show software market.

In the mean time, this thread is really not about the relative merits of open source. It's about information that will positively impact Pangolin clients, Phoenix clients, and the whole industry.

[sugeek]

Sure well to each their own. I'll continue using Apple products including iPhone. I'll continue using products like 3D Studio MAX and Cinema 4D with which movies are made. And I'll continue to sit and wait until there are signs of life that open source can work in the laser show software market.

In the mean time, this thread is really not about the relative merits of open source. It's about information that will positively impact Pangolin clients, Phoenix clients, and the whole industry.

Does this mean you will release software for the best hardware in the business rather than lower quality OS's that don't run on apple products without bootcamp or Virtualization? I would be excited to see software not written with MS. I say this as a MS developer.

-Adam

[Pangolin]

Hi Sugeek,

Great post and great question!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have grown to love Apple over the past few years. The transition of literally millions of lines of code for Windows to Apple is not something that can happen overnight. However, I do believe that within the year we will embark on native developments for Mac OS. You won't see BEYOND for the Mac any time soon, but I do believe there will be some developments for the Mac that our native support for Mac will continue to grow and grow over time.

Bill

PS: Regarding the part of your comment whose words are "not written with MS": we haven't used Microsoft development tools for over ten years.

[chad]

Hi Bill,

First, congrats on your acquisition. Second, all of the following is just my misinformed opinion. Third I understand this is just a precautionary business decision.

In response to your follow up of my last post:
"Crushed" possibly wasn't the best term to use. Crushed will here be know as 'market capture' although the end result was the same. Less competition for you with the added bonus of any IP that was better than you already had. Notwithstanding your magnanimous support for ukrainian(?) programmers. You killed the hardware, giving away the software was just good business sense. Why piss off people that might switch to pangolin? It's a package that runs on pangolin hardware costs us little to give out and hopefully will lead to more pangolin sales. A little bit of IP, less competition. No brainer...

"In the end, all clients are the real winner here, and I'd make the argument that the whole laser industry also wins."

Why do companies who are selling a shit sandwich always tell me it is better for me? Oh I know, Cingular + ATT, hhm, Nop that didn't go so good for me. I got one, BIG banks buying smaller banks, nope can't say things got better. Um, maybe, Comcast! Yeah, er... no, got screwed there too. Ok how about all of our news, and entertainment owned by 7 companies? Surely that has to be a good thing. No?
In fact I can't think of a SINGLE instance where less competition is better than more. Market capture always leads to less innovation, more control, and higher prices. Case in point, your flagship product is 14 years old. You don't have to innovate because you are pretty much the only big guy in the room and you just aquired someone, again, who (is) might be a threat.

Now that being said, your software is arguably the fastest and easiest to use. Period. The lasorb is a great product! If you're new scanners do what you claim, awesome!
Can't wait to see them, wait, so competition is a good thing?

If you had just come out and said something along the following:
A) They were starting to get a decent market share and that could be a threat so, better to just scoop em up.
OR
B) Our top of the line product is getting old and it is cheaper to just buy them for the hardware and let the software wither.
OR: A+B= Profit!

That at least is honest, without the puppies and bunnies marketing bs. Win, win!
You have already stated that the software is behind pangolin so there is no value there. So the only two things left are competition reduction or more modern and cheaper hardware. I would be really surprised if you bought the company for presumably big money without having a pretty damn good idea of what the hardware picture looked like and what the sales numbers were.
So that only leaves one misinformed opinion that I am able to draw. The move was to "crush the competition".

Anyway I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't use either software or hardware package. I recognized a business move and I commented on it. I don't blame you for your acquisition, but don't try to convince me that less is more

.02c

chad

[dsli_jon]

International ProDJ Satire sez:



..I dunno.. I see how (legit / 'worthy-opponent') competitors keep us all sharp and pushing to-innovate... and, sure - PacMan has 'innovated', but a concern is, the more 'competition' that's eaten, the more that the 'definition of innovation' becomes limited to as / how PacMan-defines it.. Having more, independent innovators in the laser-industry, seems to, overall, 'better-serve the industry', because it's the 'court of real-world usage / results' - vs a small, closed group, or '# of awards-won' (subjective to those judges, anyway) - that helps germinate what can, ultimately, be-more radically-helpful.. ie: LSX / EtherDream / Spaghetti / LaserBoy, etc

..And, sure 'Laser Boy', et al, may not-have 'changed the world, yet', etc, but... neither do those Co's have PacMan's marketing-machines, to even stand a chance of generating mass-awareness / scores of 'field-seasoned' beta-testers, etc, so - not really an 'apples to apples' comparison, imo.. And, sure - PacMan could help the world 'better-know about Product X's greatness', because it has-the $$ / cross-pollinating smart-people, etc, etc.. but.. will-it??

..Not questioning 'motive', but.. to clarify the point, how is LD2K, for example, "better" because-of the 'gobbling' of LAStudio, et al? Conversely, how is LAStudio "better", now, for those that - for whatever reason - still prefer to use it, vs LD2K, etc. Sincere-question, since I don't really know, and that is the 'crux of the concern' for Phoenix / it's users / fan-base, etc.. Will-things, indeed, all be 'bettered', by being, um.. 'eaten'. Time will tell, I guess...

Not trying to be a snarky, cynical *, just opinning that, sometimes, 'less does not-prove to be more'. ie, I'm rather glad we've got lots of flavors / spices / colors / languages / races / cultures / opinions, etc, etc - not less. '1984' is not a world I want to live in.

Just please, P-Man, don't eat LSX.
ciao
j

[kiyoukan]

Thats is a bit of a scary thought pango buying LSX...
I dont even know how to respond.

[Darcean]

Bill, any word on the network(cat5/6) version of the fb3?

[Pangolin]

I don't have time to respond to each and every one of your points, or to Jon's either, since we're just about to jump off to the next day at Prolight, but here are a few responses.

You don't have to innovate because you are pretty much the only big guy in the room and you just aquired someone, again, who (is) might be a threat.

But who was the threat, in between the time when we acquired LAStudio and when Phoenix came on the market? Phoenix wasn't always on the market, and even when they entered, under your implied theory of "needing threats to innovate", they certainly weren't a threat in the beginning.

My point is, between 2002 when we acquired LAStudio and whenever anyone here would propose that Phoenix was a viable alternative, was there any lack of innovation coming from Pangolin? Was there any raising of the prices? No on both points!

If you look at the past 27 years, it has historically and consistently been Pangolin who is pushing the envelope and innovating (and subsequently being copied by others).

Now that being said, your software is arguably the fastest and easiest to use. Period. The lasorb is a great product! If you're new scanners do what you claim, awesome!
Can't wait to see them, wait, so competition is a good thing?

Who was the competition for the iPhone when it came out? Who was the competition for the iPad when it came out? Who was the competition for LASORB before it came out? etc... You see, for us, innovation comes from our own internal drive and wanting to make great products, not from competition.

If you had just come out and said something along the following:
A) They were starting to get a decent market share and that could be a threat so, better to just scoop em up.
OR
B) Our top of the line product is getting old and it is cheaper to just buy them for the hardware and let the software wither.
OR: A+B= Profit!

I'm glad that you've taken the position that you could be wrong, because if you study the market you'd find that over the past two years Pangolin's revenue has doubled while at the same time other companies' revenue has shrunk under the weight of the economic crisis.

Moreover it wasn't Pangolin who proposed this in the first place! People seem to always think that anything that looks bad must be the idea of the big bad Pangolin. Well with our market share and revenue increasing year after year, and others' decreasing, certainly math completely the opposite of what you propose above makes more sense!

You have already stated that the software is behind pangolin so there is no value there. So the only two things left are competition reduction or more modern and cheaper hardware.

Again, I'm glad you opened up by saying that you could be wrong because you are... No hardware is more modern than ours, and we're releasing our new FB4 to early adopters (those building projectors) right now, with a general release to the public planned in a few months. (There's your answer Darcean.)

I would be really surprised if you bought the company for presumably big money without having a pretty damn good idea of what the hardware picture looked like and what the sales numbers were.
So that only leaves one misinformed opinion that I am able to draw. The move was to "crush the competition".

To the uninformed and untrained eye, maybe. But this is not the case!

I've been priviledged enough to work with a great group of business guys over the past three years or so, and it lead me to co-author four best-selling business books. They're available on Amazon.com. You should check them out. While you're at it, I'd highly recommend that you and everyone else read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and also read the book The Eighth Habbit.

One theme recurs in my books (which we learned from Dr. Stephen Covey's books -- the last two I mentioned), and that is, the difference between scarcity mentality and abundance mentality. Scarcity mentality would indeed lead you to believe "the scarcity of people making laser software creates value". But that's not how we look at business. For us, this acquisition means more clients to help and to serve! It's more clients who will be providing great feedback, etc.

As you say, you don't have either software platform so your view is only "outside looking in". I appreciate the kind words about our software being the fastest and easiest to use (points on which we agree by the way). What you don't know is how LAStudio was before we acquired it, or how Phoenix was before we acquired it. You don't know about the bugs, software support, etc. and so you won't be able to gage if things get better or worst after the acquisition.

I'm sure all LAStudio folks would say things got better, because we put a lot of time into fixing bugs, and our software development philosophy helps to eliminate them in the first place. I'll also mention to you here (just as both Boris and I stated at Prolight & Sound), we'll be continuing the support, sales, etc. of the Phoenix platform. If it was our interest to "crush the competition", don't you think we'd simply stop it immediately? Don't you think we'd have simply stopped distributing LAStudio immediately (instead of giving it away for free)?

Anyway, I appreciate your opinion, and I am sure other outside-looking-in'ers, who don't have either software platform might have a similar opinion, and therefore I appreciate the platform you've provided for me on which to respond. But I sincerely do recommend Dr. Stephen Covey's books, even if you don't purchase my own (in fact, if you send me an email, I'll send you free PDF download links for my own).

Bill

PS: By the way, all proceeds for our book sales go to charities including those for Down Sindrome. We don't make even so much as a penny off of book sales...