Annex Pro has become the first authorized commercial reseller of Toon Boom Animation software in North America. The news was announced at the SIGGRAPH 2018 conference. Annex Pro calls itself a next-generation value added reseller. It has served media and entertainment clients for 35 years.
The deal opens the $254 billion global animation market to more creators on the continent. Annex Pro will sell licenses for Storyboard Pro, Harmony and Producer to clients in the United States and Canada. Until now, those customers could only buy the software from Toon Boom itself.
Once the deal is in place, studios, VFX houses, game developers, marketing agencies and independent animators can get everything in one place. That includes the software, the hardware, the IT infrastructure and advice on licensing.
Pierre Couture is North American Director of Sales at Annex Pro. He said the partnership fits the company’s goal of end-to-end service for creative clients, from buying licenses through post-production. He added that Annex Pro can now help studios build a Toon Boom pipeline and also supply the hardware.
Francois Lalonde is VP of Sales and Marketing and Co-President at Toon Boom Animation. He said the move answers heavy demand in North America, so every studio can get the software and hardware it needs. Since global demand keeps rising, he called it another step toward making the software easy to get.
To mark the partnership, Toon Boom sponsored Annex Pro’s annual SIGGRAPH VIP Reception. It took place on August 14, 2018, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. It also donated one-year licenses for Storyboard Pro and Harmony Premium as door prizes. Meanwhile, Melanie Daigle, lead animator on My Little Pony: The Movie, demonstrated Toon Boom Harmony at the Wacom booth, no. 1023. Her demos ran on August 14 and 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Annex Pro is an authorized dealer for Lenovo, HP, Dell and Apple computers. It is also Canada’s largest reseller of Wacom Cintiq tablets, which animators use at their workstations. Thanks to decades of licensing and management experience, it can advise clients on lean pipelines and smart purchases.
Toon Boom’s award-winning software is a global standard for animation and storyboarding. It lets everyone from hobbyists to professionals work in any style and publish anywhere. Its customers include Disney Television Animation, Amazon, Fox Television Animation, Nelvana, Ubisoft, Toei Animation, The SPA Studios, Xilam and Boulder Media. The software is available in Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.
Annex Pro was founded in 1983 and is based in Vancouver, with offices in Los Angeles, Toronto and Montreal. Thousands of its customers use its hardware, software and cloud tools for animation, visual effects, games and immersive media. It also partners with Autodesk, Avid, Wacom and hundreds of other companies. Its services cover sales, rentals, professional and cloud services, financing and tech support.
