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DMN: Now, you've had to lay off a number of people in North America as well in the past few months. Can you give us a percentage on that? How many people have you laid off overall?
Lypaczewski: I don't have the percentages today in terms of the overall North American impact. As we said in our [August] earnings call, between now and the end of the year, we're going to be continuing to look for efficiencies across the organization. It is a work in progress, and it's all part of running a healthy business. And, this makes a strong statement, in fact, about our ongoing commitment to the systems business. As you've heard me say on multiple occasions, it's the actions that speak. And the big action which is forthcoming, of course, is the launch of Inferno 5 and Flame and Flint version 8, which are incredible releases, and ones that we are excited about, our customers are excited about, and we think will be important for us in the marketplace in the next few months.
DMN: That's slated as a winter release. Can you give us a more specific date for those three releases?
Lypaczewski: We're saying the winter right now. It's in the final stages of its Beta. We just want to make sure that all the appropriate items are wrapped up in the Beta before we're going to lock down a specific announcement on the date. I was talking to one of our key accounts in the United States today. They have one of the applications in production and they said, "Look, it's letting us do work we just never could have done before." So the Beta is playing to rave reviews, the efficiencies and new workflow that's permitted by the multi-resolution capabilities of that release are phenomenal. Our customers are getting extremely excited about it.
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DMN: When it gets closer to release, we'd like to take a look.
Lypaczewski: That's exactly what we would like you to do. We'll set that up before the end of the year.
DMN: How's it going with Strata and Mezzo? You're calling that DMA now, aren't you?
Lypaczewski: Discreet Media Architecture, yes. As we discussed before, the benefit of listening to one's customers is, they sometimes ask you to do a few more things, which is exactly what we are doing. So we've had multiple spins on the Alpha since NAB. It's in the hands of a number of key customers who are working with this, and it's made a lot of progress. Again, the customers are very excited about the new opportunities that the media-serving architecture of Mezzo provides and the power of the application and the way new workflows are permitted by it. So, good progress is being made.
DMN: Do you have any comment on the demise of 5D, and maybe the possibility that Discreet might pick up some of that technology to benefit your Discreet media architecture or something else?
Lypaczewski: It's really conjecture as to what will ultimately happen to the assets that were part of 5D, so I won't make any statements on that, Charlie, but the demise of the company is just indicative as to how difficult these times are right now. It just reinforces the wisdom of the steps we are taking to make sure that our costs are properly aligned to the nature of the opportunity that's out there.
DMN: That's what you see as the key to survival right now in this tough market, and that's what's underlined by the demise of 5D -- you have to work smart and have products that people want.
Lypaczewski: Everyone has lost out in this market. Some people have hit the ground. We are the leader. We have the staying power, and we're positioning ourselves to be on the right trajectory on the other side of this storm.
DMN: I know laying off all those people must hurt.
Lypaczewski: It's the most serious step that one takes as a corporation. It's obviously the step of last resort. Our people are the most important part of our company. They are the company. We're doing everything to respect the affected employees and the laws of the various jurisdiction where we operate, and still continue to focus religiously on the experience we're delivering to our companies.
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