Software for the Next Generation
Leading software vendors and the education marketStudents are the customers of the future, and software companies have long realised the opportunity that the education sector has to offer.
To get a feel of the market and provide an overview of the trends, products and key players within the education market space, CAD Spaghetti carried out interviews across 12 countries.
Over the next few months we will be reporting a summary of our findings within the following market sectors:
- Media and Entertainment
- Architecture and Civil Engineering
- Manufacturing
- Geospatial
Media and Entertainment
The trend has been set by the entertainment industry."
Trends and ChallengesThe market is growing at a very fast pace mainly due to the film industry and the growth of the video gaming sector. |
 |
Leading software vendors’ focus is moving towards addressing younger and younger students. It is considered important to engage students as early as possible.
Leading and well-known companies are partnering with educational institutions to encourage a stronger curriculum that better meets the needs of the industry.
There has been an increase of interest and funding from governmental bodies to support educational institutions in obtaining software; the aim is to ensure that students develop market-ready skills during their studies to improve their chances when applying for jobs and enable them to compete in world markets.
In order to prepare students for their professional careers, teachers and instructors play a key role. It is essential that they also have the opportunity to develop their skills.
Figure depicts all software piracy globally.
Piracy in this market sector is still a big issue facing software vendors. In order to decrease the amount of pirated software copies in circulation, software vendors are choosing to sell education versions of their software at prices that students can afford.
The success of films such as Spiderman 3, Happy Feet and 300 has further prompted awareness and interest in 3D animation amongst students and motivated many to pursue a career in design.
Media and Entertainment is the only industry sector where no student licenses are available free of charge apart from the trial versions.
Biggest players
In the Media and Entertainment market Autodesk, Avid Technology and NewTek are considered the main players. There are several other vendors such as Maxon, with their Cinema 4D product, and Pixologic but all these are not comparable in size, offers or revenue.
www.autodesk.com
 |
In the Media and Entertainment sector, all of Autodesk’s products -- including its core 3D software solutions, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max – are available to students, teachers and educational institutions both in higher education and at the K-12 (primary – secondary education) level. |
K-12 Autodesk Animation Academy
The Autodesk Animation Academy includes Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox software combined with six curriculum modules that focus on key academy subjects. The package also comes with detailed teacher guides, quickstart guides, evaluation aids, and cross references between the specific subject matter addressed and the academic subject matter. This aids in tracking Standards of Learning requirements.
These modular, customizable materials are delivered on DVD in both Microsoft Word DOC and Adobe PDF formats.
Purchase Options
|
Funding can be a challenge for many schools. That’s why Autodesk offers affordable and flexible purchase options for the Autodesk Animation Academy: Annual Term License—Purchase an annual classroom license to use the Autodesk Animation Academy curriculum, including 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder,
and Mudbox software on up to (10) computers, with an eleventh license for the instructor. When the annual license expires, you may purchase another annual
license or remove the software and curriculum from the computers without any further commitment. |
Higher Education |
 |
The Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max Super Packs are offered to educational institutions to prepare the next generation of film, game and animation professionals. |
Maya Super Pack |
3ds Max Super Pack |
| Autodesk® Maya® Unlimited software for integrated 3D modeling, animation, effects, and rendering | Autodesk® 3ds Max® software for out-of-the-box 3D modeling, design visualization, animation, and rendering |
| Autodesk® Toxik™ software for real-time, HDRI film procedural and 3D compositing | Autodesk® Combustion® software for desktop paint, color correction, compositing, and visual effects |
| Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software for real-time 3D character animation | |
| Autodesk® Cleaner®
software for high-quality, flexible media mastering and encoding Autodesk® Mudbox™ for creating highly detailed organic and inorganic assets |
|
Autodesk has developed a program specifically for institutions that want to give their students access to Autodesk software.
In addition to the free trial versions of several of these products on the Student Engineering & Design Community site, Autodesk offers students affordable pricing on its media & entertainment software.
www.softimage.com
Avid Technology offers 3D animation software for games, film and television through its subsidiary company Softimage; main features include advanced modelling, animation and rendering. In various versions, including the latest SOFTIMAGE XSI, the software is available globally.
The Softimage Education Program includes the following elements:
The Softimage Education Partner (SEP) Program offers partnership opportunities for education and training facilities that are teaching SOFTIMAGE|XSI.
The Softimage Certified Instructor (SCI) Program offers 3D professionals interested in teaching with SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® the opportunity to become certified on the latest version of the software.
Purchase Options
Educational licenses of SOFTIMAGE|XSI are available from the Softimage Store , through a network of authorized resellers and directly from Softimage Sales offices worldwide.
Permanent licenses and 1 Year Subscriptions are available for purchase.
Permanent License |
1 Year Subscription |
| Commercial Price: $ 4995 | Commercial Price: $ 4995 |
| Educational Price: $295 | Educational Price: $175 |
New Tekwww.newtek.com
NewTek offers numerous applications, tools and resources to the education community.
NewTek’s main product is LightWave 3D - a robust 3D system and easy modelling and rendering tool with character animation. Further options include:
3D Arsenal: Integrated system for easy creation of 3D animation designed specifically for students who want to add industry standard graphics and animation to projects but are not required to have video editor experience.
SpeedEDIT: Video editor, providing an easy-to-use video workflow for video project resolution-independent editing, from webstreams to Hi-Definition.
TriCaster: Enables students to broadcast live events through a projector, television or the Internet.
VT[5]: Allows students to customize operation to any variety of editing software and equipment, as well as to create a variety of industry-quality productions.
Purchase Options- Classroom Curriculum and Learning
- District – School – Classroom Communication
- Athletic Departments
- Booster and Extra-Curricular Programs
Global Market
In the 21st century the software education market is global. Vendors generally practice the same pricing policy worldwide, but nevertheless, differences are apparent.
From the 12 markets analysed, the biggest and more structured markets are USA, Canada, Japan, France, UK and Germany.
Students can buy software online from numerous websites where discounted bundles are offered along with learning DVDs and books. In fact, all vendors focus also on the learning process by offering DVD’s and/or books and providing a myriad of onsite training and support.
Asia ranks highest for demand within the education software industry. The games industry development in these countries creates a huge interest, not just generally but vocationally.
We discovered a different picture in Latin America. Here the software market for education is still in its early life. Offers are not as structured, and there are still great improvements to be made. Autodesk is the only vendor of the three that has offices in the region; NewTek and Softimage rely on resellers to generate awareness and revenue.
Summary
More and more commitment to education can be seen from all software vendors currently active in the education sector. Investing in educational programs and competitions aimed at the education sector are considered by many to be beneficial marketing activities.
Due to the rapid changes in technology where global trends and challenges lead to increasing complexity, more sophisticated techniques are required from software vendors to enable solutions to be used across industries, between disciplines and within different project phases.
The educational software market is not as different from the "commercial" market as one might think; there is fierce competition. Virtually all the vendors offer the same solution to the education channel as they do to the commercial customers.
So what differs? Mostly the price. Discounts on academic licences vary slightly but vendors typically offer at least 80% discount on their commercial licenses.
Leave a Comment / Question