The CAD Insider

Pricing for Foreign Markets - Autodesk Gets It

In her quest for world domination, Carol Bartz, previous CEO of Autodesk, returned from a trip to India with the realization that selling software for one price regardless of location was not going to work*. Software that may have been priced right for the US market (fast approaching saturation) was priced utterly wrong for countries like India. Software that costs many times the average workers salary can be quite unattainable in such a country. Or should I say, a legal version can be quite unattainable?

This realization has resulted in "geography-based" pricing for Autodesk products. Prices in India have take at least a step in the right direction. Inventor is about half of what it costs in the US. So, I am told, is other Autodesk software.

What is to prevent software bought in a country with "geography-based" pricing being used in the United States? For one thing, the end user license agreement (EULA)--the fine print no one bothers to read as they are in too much of a hurry to install the software.

Unlike material goods such as cars, coffee, clothes, etc. which have an intrinsic value based upon their ingredients, software has the luxury of bearing whatever price the market can bear. The cost of a CD or a download is negligible. Once software investment (the cost of writing and testing the code) has been recouped, additional licenses can be distributed for next to nothing. Of course, this thinking does not take into account support but as we know, software support can and has been established very inexpensively overseas.

*Source: Jim Lynch, VP Marketing, Autodesk Building Solutions

What to Expect in the Next AutoCAD - Maybe

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Autodesk University) - Autodesks faced a dilemma Thursday morning. How do you show the users what to expect in future releases of AutoCAD and still have some wiggle room in case the features shown don't actually make it into the software? Autodesk's response was to precede the presentation with a legal message as to how what we were about to see may or may not be in the next release--or any release thereafter for that matter. However, you only had to look at the Windows title bar to see "Spago -Beta 2." Spago* is the Autodesk code for the next release of AutoCAD.

To tell us about "future" AutoCAD were AutoCAD product manager Abhi Singh, technical evangelist Lynn Allen and Ashok Gadangi, chief software architect for AutoCAD

Here are some highlights

• Dimensioning in model space. At one time, this was verboten. You had to dimension in paper space or stay after class. Now, it's have it your way. You enter a scale factor and model space will recognize it, too. Dimensions and other annotations will appear at the proper height. You can throw away your CadCARD, says product manager Abhi.
• The dashboard interface contains more 2D commands and can now be customized. You will also be able to customize the layer manager by removing or moving columns. New columns have been added to the Layer Manager that allow you to control layer color by viewport.
• Excel in AutoCAD. OLE not cutting it? "Future" AutoCAD will allow you to bring Excel spreadsheet data in as an AutoCAD object that's linked. Plotting problems with OLE objects will be eliminated. Associativity with Excel will be retained, so if data is changed in Excel, the AutoCAD object will be updated.
• Improved use of Word. Bringing in Word data will retain paragraph spacing and MTEXT can be that can be re-sized to fit in columns. Leader Lines. Look for multisegment leaders. Also, you'll be able to pick multiple leaders and have AutoCAD automatically line them up so they are all left justified.
• A promise of 64 bit and multi-core support "pretty soon." (A hardware vendor on the show floor was more specific. He said he would be very surprised if such support was not in the very next edition of AutoCAD)
• Ashok predicted chips aren't going to run faster, but will add more cores. However, he cautioned against expecting multicore to run applications considerably faster. Applications have to written as mutli-threaded applications. He indicated that Autodesk will be looking for ways to use idle cores.
• Real time rendering is a goal.
• "Future" AutoCAD will contain constraints, such as already found in parametiric software such as symmetric, tangent, parallel, etc.
• Expect macro recording. This has been on the wish lists for SO long (Hey, where's that "listening to customers?" we hear about all the time?)
• Drawing search and compare
• Optional "customer feedback." Some would call this spyware, as it transmits user input to to Autodesk. "If we see a lot of UNDOs, we know we may have a problem." Ostensibly to improve the software but I can see a lot of users turning this option off.

*Spago is one of Wolfgang Puck's restaurants, so expect Postrio, Chinois, Lupo, Vert, etc.

Autodesk and Architectural Desktop - On Again

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Autodesk University) - Is Autodesk going to kill AD? Not on Jay Bhatt's watch. Jay is Autodesk's VP of Autodesk's Building Solutions, the division in charge of architectural products including Autodesk Building Systems, Architectural Desktop as well as its BIM products (aka Revit and Revit-based products). "People always ask me that," says Jay says wearily. Far from getting rid of ADT, Jay tells us that Autodesk remains quite committed to ADT. "We spent more on R&D on ADT last year than we spent on our BIM products."

These words should console ADT users, who have probably felt as if they have fallen out of favor ever since Autodesk paid a whopping $133 million to acquire Revit back in 2002. They may have seen their fate unfolding as Autodesk's manufacturing division aggressively worked to phase out Mechanical Desktop, another AutoCAD-based vertical application, in favor of Inventor. But the stubbornness of of ADT users seems to be paying off. How could Autodesk ignore the sheer mass of their numbers? By Autodesk's own estimates, there are 450,000 to 475,000 ADT users out there and most of them have trouble letting go. This is Autodesk 3rd biggest installed base (behind AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT and Inventor) -- and no doubt a healthy market to sell ADT upgrades to.

But will Autodesk now have to work to win back ADT users? One person who is vocal on the subject is Martyn Day, editor of UK's AECmag.com. Martyn told of complaints from ADT users who have felt deprived of innovation--especially in the area of 3D. Autodesk at first wanted to argue this point but conceded that improvements to ADT were mostly in the area of ease of use. It was clear that 3D users would be steered towards Revit, a product built from the ground up with 3D in mind.

To emphasize how ADT is still a going concern, Autodesk staged a little demo comparing ADT to AutoCAD in the basic tasks of taking a floor plan, adding windows and doors, measuring rooms, making elevations, etc. Of course, ADT won hands down. Though greeted by a 'ho hum' by the informed among us (we had seen ADT do this for years now), it still served to show that the company was once again on a path to sell ADT to it's millions of AutoCAD users, rather than try to convert them all the way to Revit in one step.

Other highlights:

• Revit is experiencing 94% year yer to year growth
• There are a total of 140,000 seats
• 18,000 Revit seats were sold last quarter, compared to 8,000 ADT seats in the same period

Autodesk University 2006, Day 1 -- CEO Keynote

Carl Bass wasn't taking this Autodesk University lightly. He was wearing a nice new suit. Those who knew him from the early days in shorts and Birkenstocks would not recognize him. This was his first AU as CEO of Autodesk. It is customary for the CEO to welcome the users at the opening keynote address. I wondered if he would work the crowd differently than his predecessor, Carol Bartz.

It's all about 3D at the keynote address at Autodesk University. Click for larger image -- you won't believe what is being shown is a modular home.

Already, Lynn Allen a perennial AU favorite, had informed us that this was the biggest AU ever. 7,500 were in attendance of which probably 5,000 were users, or 'agents of change' according to our badges. She had introduced Carl, but hardly gave herself any time, no doubt disappointing her huge fan base. Carl mentioned his company's contribution to "experiencing things before they are real." Autodesk was going to waste no time in showcasing customers with and several "gee-wiz" projects. Among some of the highlights:

• The entire central London --high rises, residences, bridges, the river Thames, etc.--modeled with enough detail to include chimneys, even the cameras on the bridges--giving new meaning to the word supermodel. Done with aerial photography and 3Ds Max by GMJ Design.
• US Army uses a virtual model of Baghdad, complete with buildings and interiors, for its missions: planning attacks, escape routes and mapping lines of vision
• A modular home that would forever change your view of modular homes. Built on site in a mere 8 hours, it's interior and exterior looked fit for Architectural Digest (see www.livinghomes.us)
• Parsons Brinckerhoff, a firm that specializes in infrastructure supermodels, showed 3D images of subway tunnel project. Also coined a new term 5D. I realize 4D is 3D plus time but what is 5D? Get some 3D glasses and check out the gallery at http://www.pbworld.com/imagine/
• Autodesk also mentioned it's Impression program, a 'non-realistic' renderer, available at Autodesk Labs.

Autodesk CEO Carl Bass protests having to wear a suit by donning his own style of eyewear.

Lynn Allen introduces the main speaker, Carl Bass. (Lynn, more jokes next time, please)

Overall summation: Carl's presentation was a soft sell, a welcome contrast to hard sells at previous AUs that seemed to reach a fever pitch at last year's event. Instead of insisting that we were to buy Autodesk's higher priced 3D vertical programs immediately upon our return to our offices, Carl preferred to let the customers and their applications dazzle us. And dazzling they were! 3D applications of Revit, Inventor.3ds Max were presented in a nonstop visual banquet. 2D application, a market Autodesk seems to have saturated with AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, were conspicuously absent. The only floor plan I saw appeared briefly and only on the wall of a 3D virtual building model. I'm sure any 2D-only user present (of which there are still many) would have left the presentation with a singular purpose of looking seriously at 3D upon their return to the office. Thousands will have left the packed room in lock step, having effectively become the 'agents of change,' and maybe not even realizing it. Now, that's how to do it. For Carl, a mission accomplished.

Autodesk University 2006: Day 0 -- Why Las Vegas?

Everyone should see Las Vegas once -- but only once. However, it has been my misfortune to have to come back repeatedly. You see, Las Vegas has become a favored destination for Autodesk University, the annual conference for AutoCAD users. I've also had to come here to cover a SolidWorks convention and several Comdexes (thankfully, they have ceased to exist).

Why host a CAD user meeting in such an unlikely locale? "Lost Wages," as the airline pilot referred to Las Vegas, is America's self appointed sin capital. What other city would have as it's marketing slogan "whatever happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas?"

Surely, Autodesk hopes that the pearls of wisdom gleaned by the thousands of AutoCAD users gathered here will leave Las Vegas and profit companies all over the world. After all, those companies have gambled [pun intended] thousands of dollars in sending these users here. But the sad truth of the matter is that despite the best intentions of the companies and the conventioneers, the knowledge is only undermined by a backdrop of a city that seems hell bent on catering to the basest all human desires.

It's not enough that the city's reason for existence (gambling) greets you as you step off the airplane in the form of hundreds of slot machines. In the short cab ride to the Venetian (the hotel/casino where AU2006 is being held), I got quite an eyeful of the city's fleshier pleasures such as the semi-nude cabaret showgirls on billboards and the newspaper vending boxes filled with sex tabloids. Inside, the casino gives you free drinks as long as you are gambling. Outside the hotel, a legion of men press leaflets in your hand espousing every kind of sex worker.

Perhaps it is cost that endears CAD vendors to Las Vegas. I expect that conference hosting costs are on the low side. Below-market costs are probably more than offset by gains made by the casino by the conventioneers' losses at blackjack, slots, roulette and the like. Also, flights to Las Vegas are generally inexpensive. Ditto, hotels.

But what of the true cost? What's the cost of a fuzzy recollection of the yesterday's classes because of all that cheap liquor? How about the ATM debits to feed the slot machine that is just about to pay off big? What about skipping the last day of the conference because of the cumulative effects of late nights? How about another trip to the buffet, surely you've earned it? What of all the trips denied because the boss who just can't believe you'd want to go to Vegas to learn CAD?

There's gotta be a better place for a CAD user meeting. Please.

Adobe Manages Digital Rights -- for CATIA

Adobe continued its push as establish itself with CAD users as it recently unveiled a file rights management software and service. Called LiveCycle Policy Server 7.2, it is meant to control access to Adobe PDF files, MS Word and Excel documents-- and most importantly for CAD users, CATIA V5 files.   

With it, CATIA users can protect their model and drawing files from unwanted access. For example, a engineering firm can send their CATIA-designed part to several manufacturers for bids but limit the accessibility to the files so recipients cannot print or can only access drawings for a limited time. In the example used, once the best bid is selected, the engineering firm can immediately deny all access to the files to all unsuccessful bidders immediately. In another example, employees can be prevented from taking intellectual property with them when they leave the company, an issue of increasing concern with outsourcing and overseas development.

All this is accomplished with use of a digital rights server -- either operated by the engineering company (the shrink wrapped product) or by Adobe (the service). Adobe client software will encrypt the drawings before they are sent out. When the files are accessed by the recipient, the rights server is contacted and the intended rights are then transmitted. The reason rights can be changed on the fly are because the rights don't travel with the files. The rights are granted from the server which in control of the file owner.

What's' puzzling is why Adobe has targeted CATIA users and CATIA users only for CAD digital rights management? Don't Autodesk's DWG files represent a more lucrative market? According to Adobe, CATIA was chosen because the industries served by CATIA (automotive and aerospace) are thought to have "higher value" model files. Or would the choice of CATIA allow Adobe to use CATIA-style pricing -- CATIA users are presumably accustomed to spending more for design software and Adobe may hope that this sentiment may also apply to their software.

Where does this leave the millions of non-CATIA users? Adobe says those users may avail themselves of Adobe's SDK (software development kit) to fashion their own solution. Of course, this implies the availability of developers who may very well be in short supply and the small and medium size businesses in which AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc. are favored.

More information is on Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server is available at the Adobe website.

SolidWorks Training Diary -- All's Well That Ends Well

True to my promise I made at the end of my SolidWorks Essentials class, I "stayed with it," devoting at least half an hour a day to using the software. Okay, may be not every day, but most days.. The perseverance paid off.

I tested myself by creating 2 parts that I was quite familiar with from my teaching days and surprised myself by finishing them. I was hardly moving at demo jock speed. In fact, I think I made a few small errors and probably would have made the demo jocks laugh at my bungling ways. But most importantly, I finished. Gone was the head banging, fits and frustrations that marked my first few attempts. Several times, I came up against what would have been a barrier but some memory of a procedure, command or trick learned in class would kick in and I was able to get through it. Lo and behold, the people who had told me to take a class actually knew what they were talking about.

I must say I actually enjoyed making the parts shown. Compared to my old ways (over ten years ago with Mechanical Desktop) this newfangled software was a delight. For example, the ease at which I could move around the model to view it from different angles was SO easy with SolidWorks. In fact, I think I may even have exposed a small error in a model that had gone undetected in 4 years of teaching 3D modeling. Also enjoyable was using the feature tree to make changes. I loved SolidWorks' extrude command with its offset feature, which allows me to start an extrusion away from a chosen plane -- one of many little timesavers that I found in SolidWorks 2007.

Overall, my experience with SolidWorks has left me feeling that the software is, indeed, a joy to use as long as the user allows for an adequate training period. Do not think that using such a sophisticated product right out of the box will be straight forward or easy. I suppose a user could be self taught but this would greatly extend the training period. The consensus -- and my own personal experience -- calls for a short class by a certified instructor. In other words, you can launch from a long runway or use a catapult launch. You may protest when your SolidWorks VAR will only sell software bundled with 1 year of support and a training class. If you are a skeptic like me, you'll think of this as a way to jack up the profits -- like the warranties that the electronics stores always want to sell you. But in this case, the skeptics will be wrong -- the training is essential.

Autodesk Zeroes in On Open Drawing Alliance

In a lawsuit filed in federal court recently, Autodesk alleges that the Open Design Alliance has infringed on its trademark (see Autodesk Sues Open Design Alliance for Trademark Infringement, by Randall Newton, AECnews.com).

Who is ODA? And why is Autodesk going after them?

The Open Design Alliance (formerly Open DWG Alliance) is an organization dedicated first and foremost to reverse engineering AutoCAD's DWG files. This service is of great value to ODA members, many of which produce CAD programs that compete with AutoCAD, as it gives them the ability to read and write DWG files.

For Autodesk, this must have seemed like watching thieves in their market. Autodesk has long stated that the DWG format was part of their "intellectual property" and so must have chafed at the idea of rival CAD programs being able to read and generate DWG files rather than put up the big bucks for AutoCAD -- or at least AutoCAD LT. Many CAD insiders wondered why Autodesk even "allowed" the ODA to operate unchallenged.

Autodesk's last straw was the reverse engineering of AutoCAD 2007 by the ODA. In an attempt to distinguish "genuine" AutoCAD files from ones that were reverse engineered, Autodesk introduced a "watermark" in its DWG files. As it does with every AutoCAD release, the ODA went to work deciphering the proprietary DWG 2007 format, right down to reproducing the trademarked watermark, thereby negating any advantage Autodesk had created. When interviewed in October about ODA reverse engineering the watermark, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass stated that the copying of the watermark "was a concern." (see Interview with Carl Bass; Part 1, by Martyn Day, MCAD Online, November 6, 2006)

From the story that appeared in AECnews.com, it appears that Autodesk is confining its legal action to the use of the watermark rather than attack the overall operation of the ODA. If successful, this legal action would certainly disrupt Autodesk's competetition as ODA members would be forced to strip offending code from their products. However, the ODA could easily come back with a reverse engineered 2007 DWG format sans the watermark and the competition would be back in business in a short time.

But can ODA defend itself and recover? The ODA has been embroiled in a scandal that has left it leaderless. Over $500,000 has been reported missing from its treasury -- money that would certainly help in a fight against Autodesk (see Open Design Alliance Puts Yares on Administrative Leave, Randall Newton, AECNews.com, October 11, 2006) [In fact, I wonder if with proper leadership the lawsuit may even have been avoided. Autodesk claims to have sent a cease and desist letter about the watermark in November that went unanswered]

It remains to be seen if this lawsuit is the first salvo of a bigger battle. In other words, does Autodesk plan to shut down ODA or be content with exclusive use of the watermark?

Synergis Software's Coming Out Party

I was curious about Synergis Software's first ever press event. Though I had known of Synergis for many years, they had kept a fairly low profile. Now Synergis was joining the ranks of companies -- usually big ones -- that have realized that a great way to generate editorial coverage is to fly in and sit down a bunch of editors. For the whole day (sometimes more), a company can have the undivided attention of editors in a way that cannot be accomplished from a WebEx meeting or a trade show floor. Editors, being a conscientious lot, will invariably turn that big chunk of time into ink (or pixels, as the case may be). Voila! Suddenly, there will be many articles sprout about the company or its product.

David B Sharp III, Synergis Software president and CEO (middle), Scott Lamond, VP of marketing and sales (left) and Todd Cummings, VP of R&D, host the first Synergis Software Editors' Day

My curiosity piqued right away as Todd Cummings, Synergis Software's vice president of R&D addressed us with:

Is it madness to expect humanity, humility and service from a software company?

Had I stumbled into a New Age meeting in the very unlikely setting of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, once famous for its steel mills? As I checked for exits, president and CEO David Sharp followed up by revealing that he more or less works for his employees and may respond to their problems by asking how he might be failing them as their CEO. There is no politics or backstabbing at Synergis, he adds. Is Synergis run like a democracy? "That would be nice. If it was, I would at least have a vote," joked Sharp.

Synergis has gone as far as to institute what they call a "Red Flag" policy. Any employee can force one issue per quarter (called a Red Flag) which demands consideration at the highest level. This was instituted after a "couple of disasters" caused by good ideas being ignored.

But lest we forget, Synergis is a business, and by their own accounts, a successful one. Majority owned by Sharp himself, Synergis Technologies Inc. overall (Synergis Software is one of two independent divisions) raked in $17 million last year. From its start in 1985, it has enjoyed 21 straight years of profitability. Synergis employs 92 people, most of them near its Quakertown headquarters.

Synergis is comprised of two divisions. One is devoted to selling and supporting Autodesk applications. But the focus of this meeting was the software division, which employs about half of all Synergis employees and is responsible for the Adept enterprise product data management product. The software division's revenue has grown 70% over last year, we were told.

Was this a result of CAD users discovering a need for PDM? Or Synergis' increasing market share? Synergis did not know about its market share in the PDM market (does anyone?) but felt strongly that the demand for PDM is heating up. I wondered if that demand is spread among too many vendors? TenLinks lists over 80 PDM products in its directory (see TenLinks list). Among them are PDM products from CAD vendors that would seem to offer a guaranteed acceptance of the users' valuable CAD data. To make matters worse, some of these PDM products have been included with the CAD product and are sitting there on the shelf ready for use at no additional cost. Why would a CAD user pay more to use Adept?

Scott Lamond, VP of marketing and sales explains: If an Inventor or SolidWorks user is just managing their CAD files, Vault or PDMWorks may be sufficient. “But if you need to share engineering information with other departments like manufacturing or purchasing, or automate the engineering change or approval process or even collaborate across geographies, you’ll need Adept.”

Random notes:

• there are 27,000 Adept users
• 65% of users are in manufacturing, 16% AEC, the rest are users in process plant design, facilities and asset management, telecommunications and energy
• W. L. Gore (makers of Gortex), the US Coast Guard, SchuF, NASA, DirectTV and CBS are customers
• Adept takes 5 to 15 days to implement
• Adept includes Cimmetry's AutoVue solid model viewer
• Although SolidWorks supports multiple configurations Adept will only display a "thumbnail view" of the most current configuration. Synergis plans to remedy this in a future release. The current version does, however, show the relationship between these multiple configurations in a tree hierarchy
• PrintWave, a newly announced product that will allow batch printing and publishing from a print server, is being readied for shipment. It will sell for $6000 per print server location and only works with Adept
• Adept got its start in 1988 as software written to manage files for Scott Paper. A year later, it was used at M&M Mars. It became a shrink wrapped product soon thereafter.
• Adept's viewer can display "350-400" different formats
• Adept for MySQL costs $1300 per concurrent license with support and annual maintenance $325/yr per concurrent license. Adept MS SQL and Oracle versions start at $1400 a license.

Free CAD Offerings Are Growing

think3 is giving away a free 2D CAD package but if you hadn't heard, it's not your fault. think3 announced free2Design at rather low volume. In fact, the only public disclosure of it was a press release that ran last month and was obliquely entitled "think3 Unveils free2Design in China."

Upon further inquiry, it was revealed that:

• free2Design is free
• free2Design is available worldwide
• free2Design is available in English (and 'simplified' Chinese)

According to think3, free2Design is 'geared [no pun intended] especially toward China and India.' But nothing seems to stop people from other countries using it.

With all this free CAD software available, I wonder why people insist on paying, at least for 2D? think3 joins the growing ranks of CAD companies willing to give away their software. UGS had announced a free Solid Edge 2D Drafting in September. Delcam offered PowerShape-e, a free surface modeler, earlier this year.

It's easy to see why 3D CAD vendors would give away free 2D software. Making 3D software out of 2D software is merely an exercise in stripping away 3D commands and capabilities from an existing program -- far easier than creating new CAD software from scratch. Since the resulting 2D software shares the code base, it will have the same user interface, many of the same commands and the same file structure as the 3D version. Then it behooves the 3D CAD vendor to get the free software in the hands of as many 2D users as possible in the hopes that when the 2D user is ready to do 3D, he will adopt the 3D software that will provide some familiarity and will be able to read his existing drawings.

So why is think3 whispering when it should be shouting?

• free2Desing is available at http://www.free2design.org/.
• See the complete list of free cad software on www.freecad.com.
• For an additional discussion of free2Ddesign, see 'think3 thinks2' on WorldCAD Access