The CAD Insider

Autodesk at Maker Faire - Crazy Like a Fox

 How often does a CEO of a billion dollar company give up a Saturday to guide kids? Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, is doing just that. Before a standing room only crowd at Maker Faire, he delivers a heartfelt plea for one and all, the young and their parents, to use his company’s software, to help make things, something, anything -- whatever their heart might desire, it seems. To help them, he’ll make his software, some of it sold to professionals for thousands of dollars, available for free --or really cheap.

It is a message that plays well to those attending Carl's talk “CAD for Kids.” A lot of kids have actually showed up – along with their parents. Before the show, Carl tells me, it was the parents he actually wants to reach.

Carl is on a mission to gain acceptance among the youth. But spending millions on software just to give it away? But for those outside the room, the shareholders, the board, the financial community, people without kids… are they thinking Carl has gone crazy?

He might be crazy like a fox, though. Autodesk discovered the consumer market almost by accident. Its Sketch app for the iPhone got a million downloads in almost no time. It had taken years before its flagship AutoCAD reached a million users. To say it struck gold with Sketch might not be accurate as most users stay on the free version, generating zero income, but Autodesk was in a place that it could afford to commit millions of dollars to see where such numbers might lead. A consumer division in Autodesk was born.

Autodeskers credit Carl for such the initiative, the daring to go after a not-immediately-profitable market. Sowing the fields, i.e., providing technology at low cost hoping for commercial success is not new. Apple did it for years. Now generations of kids have grown up with Apple computers. It can be argued that it led to Apple’s success today. It’s not entirely without risk. Didn’t Apple almost run out of money before its mobile devices saved the day?

Carl gets the maker movement. He is a maker. His medium is wood and his tools are his own CAD products. He gets making things like no other CEO I can think of. It’s not just dollars and cents with Carl but some higher calling. Make something! He seems to say.

In jeans and a t-shirt, he's not your usual CEO. He seems more like an uncle. And a kindly one, too. The uncle who remembers your birthday and what you actually like, not the one who gives you socks. He knows you play too many video games but he won’t tell you to get off your ass and make something of yourself. He’ll play ball with you in the front yard.

The tools he has offered are substantial and generous. What is he hoping to gain? To me, it seem nothing less than a resurgence of creativity and productivity, starting with the young, but applied on a scale that Autodesk can address, this could be BIG! Give me your kids, I’ll give them the means…starting with software, but with 3D printing, a lot more. Let’s see that they can make. Why can’t they make anything they want? Including making America great again.

I find myself under Carl’s spell and have to shake myself. But the message of hope is unmistakable.

There may be detractors among the more cynical. For sure, a couple of bad quarters could make detractors out of the previously hopeful. The road to winning the minds of the next generation is a long one, but the difference from one Maker Faire to the next is considerable and noticeable. Kids are swarming the Autodesk booth, playing on iPads, using Sketch, the 3D Creature, wanting to get a 3D print of themselves. I don’t remember so many kids last year. I wonder if the kids belong to Autodesk employees but I am assured they most certainly are not. The kids seem to be having fun.

I allow myself to slip into Autodesk’s fantasy: a generation of children growing up using Autodesk applications of whatever devices their little hands can hold, all cheap or free, all online, not caring if on the cloud or what format their data is in, who their reseller is, how to install it or maintain it, no need to train on it or do homework.

Crazy like a fox, indeed.

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Chasing Maker Gold

SAN MATEO, CA (Maker Faire), May 18, 2013 – The line to get into Maker Faire is a mile long. Spread out over the San Mateo Fairgrounds, just south of San Francisco, this show expects 120,000 people over the next two days. Some of the halls will be so packed by later this afternoon that I will not be able to get from one end to the other.

The last big show before Maker Faire I went to was Comdex. The biggest CAD show I go to is Autodesk University. But AU pales by comparison as it cannot summon even 10,000 attendees. Could this maker movement be the next phenomenon? And is there money to be made selling to all these makers?

Dale Dougherty, founder of Make: magazine and the wildly successful Maker Faire, introduces a speaker during the press event

I’m certainly not the only CAD insider trying to figure this out. Exhibiting at this show are Autodesk, Trimble (SketchUp), NVIDIA… and a host of 3D printing vendors.

Surveying the sprawl of exhibits, how to tap into the maker market may not be very clear. As varied as it is big, Maker Faire at first glance is but a loose collection of disparate movements, trends, arts and crafts. Among mechanical fire breathing contraptions (the Burning Man crowd is well represented), produce from inner city gardens, robot kits that promise on time meds to Chinese grandmas, aerial farm drones…a hundred products from science fairs and the minds of whimsical artists, 2 things seem clear:

1. Everybody is making something
2. Everybody is young

Maker displays are often wildly creative, such as this huge draw at Maker Faire Bay Area.

Making something invariably involves materials and resources and with the numbers Maker Faire can produce, it was only a matter of time before corporate America came a’ knocking. Not just CAD companies, but insurance companies, Intel making music, Radio Shack just signed a big partnership... and more. Young makers may be spending their allowances or their parent’s money and the artists their welfare checks, but that’s still more than the average bear. I hear the typical maker manages to spend $1800 a year. Quick SWAG*: Maker Faire claims a total audience of almost a million. Let’s suppose that 9 of 10 makers are too busy tinkering, soldering, sewing or cooking to even show (that’s very conservative) and we can estimate the total spend of the makers to be about $10 billion! Some of that has to be design software. 

Of course, capturing the young hearts would only produce greater dividend over time. Successful tinkerers and inventors mature over time, increasing their buying power and influence. Get them while they are young, right?

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*Scientific wild ass guess

CAD Leaders Face China Threat, Pt 2: Does GstarCAD Have a Chance?

In the wake of the GstarCAD8 launch last month in Beijing, to which 3 of us western journalists were invited, I reflect on the chances of success of a Chinese CAD company in the US and world market.

Registration for the GstarCAD8 launch in Beijing.

GstarCAD8 was launched with sufficient fanfare. There were pretty girls, bright lights, a big stage. As more CAD companies are choosing to soft launch major releases from behind WebEx screens, this did make us sit up and take notice. One might read a lot into their willingness to fly 3 western industry journalists half way across the world to see the unveiling. We listed through translator headphones to company executives extolled the product’s technical prowess ( a full list of the quite impressive features is here) as well as a deliberate, long term campaign that over the years sought to establish Gstarsoft first as a regional CAD product, then as an international tool of choice.

GstarCAD has been a major player in China but now plans an international expansion.

Can they do it? We are only too well aware to what China has done to us with manufacturing. Can they do it with software? Guess what? Your software is probably already made in China – and India. I cannot think of a major CAD vendor that does not have a development team in China or India –or use Chinese or Indian labor on its home soil. A CAE vendor once told me that almost all of its developers were2 distinct groups, one from China, one from India. That was 20 years ago. The world has only got flatter since.

The Gstarsoft executive team launches GstarCAD8 in Beijing

Still, to see one Chinese company extol their CAD product is not enough to convinced that it will rule the CAD world. GstarCAD has only about 400 people. It is funded privately, not by the vast, concerted might of the country itself. Autodesk, and other CAD companies, can exhale.

There are signs, however, of a national directive for China to establish itself as a major player among software vendors. At the GstarCAD8 launch, Ky Xiang president of GstarCAD, tells us "China will be the software center of the world."

Clearly, China is no longer content to be bridesmaid. Pennies for factory, sweatshop and cubicle farm labor while it sees US stockholders pocket the big bucks--that has to hurt. God help our current CAD market leaders should China ever get its act together. Even our current heavyweight Autodesk would be knocked clear out of the ring if that happens.

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Roopinder Tara of TenLinks (left), Cyrena Respini-Irwin from Cadalyst, Jeff Rowe from MCADcafe, enjoy dim sum in Beijing, courtesy of our hosts, Gstarsoft.

Roopinder Tara, TenLinks editor, with a Red Guard in Beijing hotel.

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Autodesk Faces a China Threat, Pt 1

Autodesk Faces China Threat, Pt 1

Autodesk, the heavyweight champion of the world, is about to take on a contender. This one’s from China. Gstarsoft invited me to their 3rd annual conference in Beijing where, with great fanfare, introduced their contender GstarCAD 8.

Being virtually unknown outside of China (80% of its sales) did not deter GstarCAD from laying out its plans for world domination, a confidence inspired by the success of Chinese manufacturers and a hope that this will somehow translate to the software. GstarCAD resellers were on hand to point to the inevitability of the business software market caving in to the just-as-good-for-a-lot-less philosophy China is adept at capitalizing on. Why would anyone in their right mind spend $4,000 for AutoCAD, when they can do everything with GstarCAD --for only hundreds of dollars?

It is a familiar refrain for CAD insiders. We’ve heard contenders, foreign and domestic, proclaiming that they will be the ones to knock out Autodesk out of the ring. Remember DataCAD, TurboCAD, VersaCAD, Ashlar Vellum...? IntelliCAD and all the AutoCAD clones it spawned? Even Draftsight, which is propped up by CAD heavyweight Dassault, is unlikely to do much damage. But none seemed to even have slowed Autodesk. Autodesk gets bigger and stronger every year. With annual revenue of billions, profits of hundreds of millions and a seeming endless number of 2D users only too willing to convert to its vertical applications, Autodesk is indeed in an enviable position. Bentley, a long way back in the #2 spot with MicroStation, has about a quarter of Autodesk’s revenue.

One might dismiss previous contenders as lightweights, but can you ignore China? China’s will and weight of numbers is sufficient to frighten established market leaders – in any market. The list of big American manufacturing industries that have suffered from Chinese competition is long. Can China’s success in manufacturing be duplicated with software? To aspiring Chinese contenders, Autodesk’s success represent a huge target, no different than a Chinese factory undercutting a domestic manufacturer of doorknobs, underwear, cameras, dog food, computers...and almost anything else you can think of. China has proven it can rule in making all sorts of physical and consumer goods. Almost the same, for a lot less. It works. We’ve all bought into it.

But here is CAD software selling for thousands of dollars. It makes no sense to the Chinese. It’s vexing that it has continued so long. Artificially priced, as opposed to value priced, like diamonds. Ready to cave in, they’re sure, like all the other industries.

It’s only going to take perseverance, some sustained pressure and patience.