OK,

Yes we all agree this is about money, and not the product. Autodesk made a statement that "...both Maya and Max will continue as separate apps in their own right for the foreseeable future. We have no intention of discontinuing either app..."

Reading between the lines it reads:

We acquired Discreet and took on Max and made no major changes to it or any of the other Discreet apps. Now we have bought Alias we have cornered the VFX, SFX and Games Industries and own the 2 largest used apps in the 3D industry. We will let you all settle down and stop worrying before we get rid of both and make them one single application. Max and Maya will go at some point, we are just not saying when. Mwahahahahahaha.

Now I had spoken to gster about this 2 or 3 days ago and I said then I was worried about the future on Maya. Version 8 had the default geometry creation set to the way Max does it. Max 9 now has the same intro welcome page as Maya does. These little things point out for big changes in my book, just look out for other little Max things appearing in Maya and Maya stuff appearing in Max.

Mark my words, both apps are for the scrap heap and a new app is being morphed in front of us. Don't believe me!!! If you were CEO of Autodesk and you were spending double the money to create, maintain, develop and support 2 apps that do basically the same job, what would you do?

Hmmm... Do not trust anything that comes out of corporation statements.