Egi.sys AG is the parent company of Curious Labs, the creator of the best known digital character creation and animation program in CG market: Poser.
Poser is one of the best known programs in the Macintosh world, as it saw the light for the first time in MetaTools, but it was known with later versions already under Metacreations label.
From the death of Metacreations, other companies had put the eye on
some of Metacreations programs and original technologies. One of them was Poser, which returned to the hands of its creator: Larry Weinberg.
Now, Mac 3D professionals hope that finally Poser5 comes to our platform. It is the greater update than the applicatuon has undergone yet, bringing new and important developments to the product: creation of real hair and fur, animation with rigid and soft bodies, new render, greater integration with other software packages...
We have talked with Olga Brückmann, Public Relations of Egisys AG/Curious Labs. And this is what she had to tell us.
Macuarium Who's currently behind Egisys (and specially Curious Labs)? Could you give us a brief history of Curious Labs, the company? Why did Curious Labs buy Poser from Metacreations and why did it merge with Egisys some time later?
Egisys Egisys took over Poser in 1999 from MetaCreations, together with another software tool called Office Advantage. Amoung several competitors Egisys won the race. To continue the development, market and distribution of the products the company founded the American subsidiary Curious Labs (www.curiouslabs.com) in Santa Cruz, California in the year 2000. Larry Weinberg, creator of Poser and leading engineer at MetaCreations, Seath Ahrens (engineer) and Steve Cooper (product manager) were co-founders of Curious Labs. Lots of persons working at Curious Labs have formerly worked at MetaCreations.
So it was nearly natural that persons who know this product insideout, continue developing. Wolfgang Eichner, CEO at egi.sys AG said: "Poser and Office Advantage perfectly suit both our portofolio and the plans of egi.sys. Now we come rapidly closer to our intention, to set new standards in 3D visual programs."
Macuarium In your opinion, which will be the biggest growth area in 3D in near future (real time web content, TV& films, games development...)?
Egisys 3D for everybody. e.g. with Poser as a general 3D Tool for producing Webcontent, Illustrations, Websites, Advertisement, Storybooks etc. affordable and accessible tools will achieve the highest growth.
Macuarium The current international economic situation seems likely to continue for several months. How does Egi-sys AG live this situation? Is the current condition affecting Egi-sys/Curious Labs efforts?
Egisys We try to satisfy every single customer, we respect their wishes belonging product developement and professional support. At the moment we speed up our shipping service. THe current international economic situation is a phenomen that is going by.
Macuarium Do you think it's easier for a large UNIX based 3D&FX company to survive or it's easier for a small PC/Mac company?
Egisys In our opinion it is easier for a small PC/Mac Company, because the user base is much larger. So the reachable market segment secures for economic crises.
Macuarium These days there seems to be a real price war among the 3D software developers. From the customers' standpoint the advantages are obvious but, won't this kind of movement cause a decrease in R&D or the quality of the product? Is the 3D development market ready for this kind of situation?
Egisys It is all about positioning and market segmentation. So companies want to move into other areas… e.g. coming from the professional side and want to have a user base in the prosumer segment.
But price is not the only thing… the product, the distribution channel and the promotional plan has also to fit in the segments.
If you try to sell a high end product only by reducing the price this will fail for several reasons.
Macuarium Some days ago both Curious Labs & e-on software announced an agreement and future collaboration, beginning with a poser4/Vue4 bundle. Is e-on software Curious' best friend? Any other relationship with such great results or with future results for Mac users?
Egisys We see a good partnership in the relation between Curious Labs and E-On. We are sure that Vue is a excellent tool to bring life out of Poser into virtual sceneries and landscapes. There are further relationsships e.g. to Maxon (Cinema 4D) and Curious Labs. We try to give also the Mac users a plattform in Poser where they could use all the brilliant features of Poser 5.
Macuarium Does Egisys/Curious Labs have any special relationship with any customers that help them to implement new technologies that this customers need to use... for instance a big 3D studio?
Egisys Yes, there is a broad support of several artist, which are working in big studios or are free artist which work for e.g. Hollywood productions. This community allows us to stay in touch with the latest needs.
Macuarium Do Macintosh users of Curious Labs Poser have to wait too much for next Poser upgrade (announced for next June)? What's the main reason for not launching a PC/Mac version of Poser 5?
Egisys Porting Poser 5 to the new OS X for Mac is a large engineering task and QA task. this is the only reason for the later shippment of a Macintosh Product.
Macuarium Poser 5 seems to have an incredibly good feature set (better render, hair animation, an incredible facial system, easier animation system). What are the expectations for this great upgrade in Macintosh market?
Egisys Poser has been used with professionals in graphic and design for a long time. In this field the Mac platform has maintained a high market share, we expect that up to 30 % will come from the Mac platform.
Macuarium Poser is well known among Mac users. Knowing its smaller market size, how is the Mac community and Mac customer base considered by Egisys/Curious Labs? How is the current PC/Mac users ratio for Poser, considering that Poser 5 is not ready for Mac users?
Egisys We estimate that between 15 and 30 % of our users are currently using the Mac.
Poser 4 is still avaible for Mac… and the community is growing cause we are getting orders each day. This will speed up until the Mac port is avaible.
Macuarium How's the current relationship with Apple Computer? Do you currently receive any support from them?
Egisys No… and we are very dissapionted about that.
Macuarium Apple's G4 seems to be at the end of its life cycle. If you had the chance in your hands to lead Apple, what would be your preferences about Apple's future processor? could the "rumored" 64bit chip from IBM be a good solution?... is a 64bit chip a solution?
Egisys Why not going to Intel or AMD… the battle will not be decided with the chips… User Interface, Design and Features for the Enduser should be the focus.
Macuarium If you could ask for something that's not currently in the Mac world, what would you ask for (better graphic cards, more help and documentation from Apple,...)?
Egisys I would propose a home PC, a business PC and a mobile PC... in each fields look for differentiation to windows PC e.g. noise and design.
Macuarium What does Egi-sys AG think about MacOS X? What aspect of MacOS X would you emphasize the most?
Egisys Mac OS X will be one of the most used systems in future, this process is now at the beginning.
Macuarium Other PC-only 3D software titles from Curious are Avatar Lab and BodyStudio. Is there any intention to release them to MacOS? Any other different product from Curious for next months?*
Egisys Avatar Lab will be only for WIN. Body Studio isn't a product of Curious Labs, it belongs to Reiss-Studio and it is for WIN and Mac.
For the next month we are planning the release of the latest Mac version for Poser, the relase for the German version and the Japanese version.
Macuarium Egi-sys AG owns several software titles. In which market do you see more competitiveness in: among 3D software or Office titles?
Egisys The market for Office titles is very crowded and as a 3D company we offer Office Advantage as an add-on for MS Word and Excel.
Our profession is 3D Character Animation and we lay our emphazise on developing Poser and Poser related products.
Macuarium There are many show events around the world: consumer oriented shows as Macworld or CGI specific events as Siggraph. Is it profitable for Curious to attend this kind of events? Do you see more positive reception when Curious is in its booth and talks directly with its customers?
Egisys Taking part at events is a great chance to get in direct contact to your customers, to get feedback and to show them new developments. Of course Curious Labs and EGISYS have to identify these market places who are most important for 3D character animation.
