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To: Mathon Dabasir who wrote (3589)	11/18/1997 2:47:00 AM
From: rumboman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14451

Re: SGI purchase of Alias:Wavefront. For the record, Alias had revenues of $55 million in the fiscal year prior to the merger while Wavefront had revenues of $27.7 million. Prior to the consumation of the merger, Alias had revenues of $17.6 million in the first fiscal quarter of '96, an increase of 89% over the prior year. I may be mistaken but these figures tend to suggest that SGI may not have necessarily overpaid for these acquisitions; moreover, if one values the cost of these stock-for-stock acquisitions as of November 1997 rather than June 1995, the cost is likely to be significantly less than than the figure cited--I fail to see any reason why the cost cannot be measured in terms of the present situation rather than that existing two-and-a-half years ago.

To: Mathon Dabasir who wrote (3589)	11/18/1997 10:36:00 AM
From: vincent bilotta	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14451

you have to remember how many insiders made out big in the Alias Wavefront purchase. and after MSFT bought SoftImage, SGI had to do something destructive. so after Rob Burgess got his share and left, and the tenure of Brian Alum, who is now at Macromedia with Rob, we have Penny Wilson, from accounting, who'se watching over SGI's investment. they're a year and some late on their next generation software, with 5000 seats installed, afer 12 years, facing Kinetics 3D MAX at $3K, with over 100,000 paid seats after 3 years. on the upside, like the parent company, they have expensive superior technology. vincent

To: Mathon Dabasir who wrote (3589)	11/18/1997 10:26:00 PM
From: John M. Zulauf	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14451

phhhhhhhtttttt!! > two obscure, incompatible software companies... These are two companies that between them are responsible (to be fair, along with SoftImage) almost entirely for the mainstreaming of 3D computer graphics in entertainment. You look at essentially every "holey, moley, how did they do that!" f/x shot over the last 10 years, and you'll find an Alias, Wavefront, or Alias\|Wavefront product involved. As for our cultures, each side has brought different strength to the table. Anybody that has seem our next generation product (Maya) demo'd knows that the skills and technologies from both companies are well represented. JMHO, but, how much serious butt Alias\|Wavefront is going to kick in the animation market place with this product, is going to make heads spin. As for our physical distance, Wavefront had Vancouver BC, Santa Barbara CA, and Paris France development centers, Alias Research had Seattle WA and Toronto Ontario offices. Together we have developers in 3 countries, and 3 time zones spanning 9 hours -- and it works. One group may may have more surfers (totally, dude), another more hockey players (that's a board check, eh?) but we are strongly interconnected by systems, infrastructure, meetings, personel exchanges (TDY), and a desire to build the best products for our customers. > And, while you're at it: How much do you > think Alias/Wavefront would fetch on the open market today? With Maya soon to ship, and our NT software strategy well in hand... more! We are technically stronger, deeper in product and customer relationships, and heading for the open waters of NT. Vincent seems to think that going up against 3DSMax is going to be a new problem for us. Not so we already have to compete with them, but with porting our rendering software and Maya to NT, we're removing competitive barriers. Unofficially, (and with some small degree of partisan bias, YMMV etc.) john