Discreet halts 'Raven' Mac Cleaner development with corporate restructuring

Discreet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Autodesk, Inc, best known to Mac users for their Cleaner and Combustion products, will undergo a major corporate restructuring over the next two weeks, company executives told AppleInsider on Friday afternoon. The move has resulted in a small number of layoffs through out the company which employs over 500 people in 12 major cities across the globe.

Rumors that the company would be dissolving its Desktop Video division were widespread among Mac insiders this week, following word of layoffs associated with the Macintosh Cleaner development team. According to sources, the company was amidst the development of a major revision of Cleaner for the Macintosh, which was code-named 'Raven.'

Company officials routinely rebuffed rumors depicting the demise of the Desktop Video division during a phone conversation this afternoon, stating that the company was simply reorganizing to center around a dual department structure consisting of a development and sales division. Under the new organization, Marc Petit and Martin Vann will assume the rolls of Vice President of Product Development and Sales, respectively.

The company said it will continue to develop and support the existing Cleaner 6 product for the Macintosh while exploring technologies in the area, but declined to comment on unreleased products or the deceased Raven project. Notwithstanding, Discreet confirmed that it is on schedule to proceed with plans to deploy a Macintosh version of Combustion 3 by early 2004.

Discreet is currently listed as an exhibitor for next month's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California.