There are two ways that you can look at, the past or the future. Flame and in general Discreet’s technology is old, unflexible and in my opinion not ready for the future. On the other hand, Shake represents the future. It’s part of Apple strategy for market domination along with the G5’s and Final Cut Pro. Shake runs on Irix, Linux and Mac. It combines the best of After Effects (compatibility, ease of use, flexibility) and Inferno (huge Unix power) into one.