The CAD Insider

Autodesk Changes How You Buy CAD Software

In a historical announcement today, Autodesk announced it will stop selling software — and start renting it. After February of 2016, you will only be able to get Autodesk desktop* software on a "subscription model."

See the announcement here .

Autodesk lists advantages of subscription model (above). From presentation by Autodesk's Andrew Anagnost this morning.

It finally happened.  With this announcement, Autodesk joins the current trend in software sales favored by other industries. The very successful Salesforce.com, the most cited example, is available only on a monthly or annual subscription model. Adobe's professional bundles are now only on a $50/month plan. Just about any application newly minted is available only this way. Basecamp, Dropbox, Infusionsoft, web hosting . . . not one of them is available for "perpetual license."

Autodesk is fully aware that not all current users will be happy with this plan. The company seems to have held back on embracing this new model for years due mostly to the hue and cry from its millions of CAD users, the largest professional CAD user base in the world. For more than 10 years, Autodesk has been working on coaxing reluctant AutoCAD users to switch to subscription. Smaller CAD companies, such as Bentley, in particular, had been achieving better results switching their user base.

CAD users are not alone in wanting to buy software once and own it forever. Microsoft faces the same problem with its Office software as the software giant tries to transition to subscription. For many users, the software is good enough when it is initially purchased. They don't want to keep paying for it

There are many reasons for vendors to switch to pay-as-you-use models. Chief among them is that it evens out the revenue stream. Traditional software sales of established products rely on updates. Big annual releases had to be packed with new, useful features so users would buy the updates. A lot of them would. The revenue would spike. Only to trail off for the rest of the year, with increasingly less spectacular quarters.

Now, in a bold, no-turning-back move, Autodesk has embraced what it sees as the future of software licensing. I expect other CAD vendors will follow suit.

---

*Autodesk is calling its individual products "desktop." Its industry-bundled products, or suites, will continue to be sold with perpetual licenses — though the company stopped short of saying it would do this perpetually.

For more information:

• Perpetual Licensing Changes - from Autodesk, includes FAQs
• Autodesk’s Standalone Software to Go Subscription-Only in 2016- Bryant Frazer, Studio Daily, Feb 4, 2015
• Autodesk Moves to Subscription Service in 2016 - Kyle Maxey, ENGINEERING.com, Feb 4, 2015
• Autodesk Goes Desktop Subscription Only in 2016 - CAD-a-Blog, Feb 4, 2015

3D Printed Metal Parts in Mass Production

So great is the attention devoted to 3D printing that one might forget that industry is loving 3D printing, too. 3D printing of metal parts, not so long ago thought to be an expensive specialty of a few hardware vendors, is so hot that 3D metal printer vendors cannot keep up with demand.

"We try to get one of our 3D metal printers in our showroom but it's bought before it's finished and goes right to the customer," says Rachael Dalton-Taggart of 3D Systems, which bought metal 3D printer company Phenix in June, 2013.

BMW moving towards 3D printing for high volume production of big engine parts, mentioned in ExOne presentation.

A Revolution Starting?

BMW is planning to make all of its engine cores by 3D printing within the next 10 years, according to ExOne CEO David Burns, whose 3D printer company raised $90M after its IPO.

If you were used to 3D printing trinkets and just starting to believe that metal may be usable in one-off parts, may be small batches, statement of intention by a major manufacturer using 3D printing for its mass production ought to have made you sit bolt upright.

The appeal of going directly from image onscreen to real life as promised by 3D printing is unmistakable and understandable. Being able to do that in metal... not so much. Metal is ground down to a powder and re-solidified in a 3D printer machine. The concept may be simple, lay down the powder, apply heat and there's your part. But there must be more to it. These metal 3D printers are the size of toolsheds. I'm hearing prices from $700k to over a million.

We Love Metal

With mankind, it was love at first sight. Engineers love and trust metal. It has built our bridges, sent people to the moon, we won't have a car without it. Our eras are marked with names of metals, the Iron Age, Bronze Age. Sure, plastic are super, they can be engineered to have some great properties, they're lighter, they get better every day. But they're still not metal. For the strongest, most reliable, most trustworthy part...we'll keep using use metal.

So, now I can get metal parts directly from my computer? No machinist, no CNC machines, no waiting. Where do I sign?

What's the Catch?

• Density. Getting powdered metal back to its solid state, or even close, can't be that easy. Powder particles will have space between them, no matter how tightly they are packed. "We get 99.5% density in our Inconel process," says David Burns, speaking of his latest metal alloy Inconel 665. "They said it couldn't be done."
• Strength. Metals have been made strong by alloying, heat treatments and forging. Most 3D printing methods cannot include these methods. king stronger metals. So is forging. Toughness and strength , probably no better exemplified than by the beaten blade of Damascene steel or a Japanese sword -- is still a long way away with 3D printing.
• Voids. Does the process of sintering, melting powder produce voids? In all fairness, probably the pouring of molten metals into molds may have that risk, too.
• Cost. The powdered metal that must be somehow solidified is costly on both ends. It takes energy -- a lot of it -- to grind solid metal into a powder that is used as the raw material for a 3D metal printer. Then it takes a lot of energy to melt that powder so it solidifies. Then there's the cost of the machine...

The biggest allure of metal parts by any 3D printing process is pure and simple: you can create a design, push a button to get a part made. There's not even a machinist in the picture. And other than the wait for the part to emerge from the machine, there is no other waiting, no scheduling or coordination with other departments. If you own the machine, the process could not be any more straightforward. True, the machine may cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars. That's worth it to big companies like Boeing and BMW.

I hear of a Boeing aircraft part that gets made in a day on an ExOne machine -- as opposed to 10 months.

A Ford engineer makes a part and opens the hood of a Mustang, bolts it into place, and drives of to the test track.

In both cases, they have short circuited processes put into place over years that drag out design cycles and involve many people. Suddenly, a million dollar machine looks like a bargain.

Production, Not Prototypes

Again, these are metal parts that works in real life environments, not a plastic replica that could be used just for show and tell. The gains being made with 3D printing are pushing parts into production. 

Material research is the key to the revolution. "We are concentrating our R&D efforts on materials," says David. "In fact, our machine design improvements are close to a standstill.

I imagine factories of the future being banks of 3D print machines.

What Stopping the Revolution?

It all sounds ideal, parts from your computer, in metal, in large volumes. No set up, no wait, no "middlemen."

According to Dave, the reason he's not sellig way more metal 3D printers is the massive inertia inherent in the system. Metal cutting does work and has worked for a long time. How something is done in the past is being used as justification of how it should be done in the future. Change is risk. A factory manager won't get fired for getting another Mori Seiki 5 axis CNC machine, but will he go out on a limb and have all his CNC machines replaced by some new fangled technology? And what to do with all the machinists? 

Apple Buys PrimeSense and Leaves Industry Without Good Cheap 3D Scanner

Tech giants buying up technology for games and entertainment may have smaller companies scrambling to use leftovers for more serious applications.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (COFES 2014) - The best 3D scan device was made with PrimeSense hardware. PrimeSense was bought by Apple in a $345M deal in November 2013.

One person not happy with this deal is Amir Rubin, CEO of Paracosm, a startup intent on using 3D scanning for engineering and architectural application. "Apple pulled the Primesense cameras off the market," says Amir. "Here was the best cheap scanner you could get. There are a lot of great products built using Primesense as the underlying platform. They even shut down the website. "

(picture from IEEE website)

PrimeSense 3D scanning hardware. Good, cheap, now unavailable after Apple bought company.

Amir's company used PrimeSense hardware to create 3D models or building interiors from scan data. "Primesense nailed the tradeoff of cost vs performance," he says "There aren't any viable (sub-$30,000) alternatives for acquiring 3D structural data readily available on the market. You can't get that kind of scan from point and shoot camera. You have to have a laser, an infrared laser. Photogrammetry [3D models from photos] gives no scale. That building is going to be the same size as... this candle holder," he says pointing to the candle holder on our table during closing night open bar at COFES. 

Amir's company has managed, by hook and by crook, to stockpile a couple hundred  PrimeSense devices. He seems to think the patented technology of PrimeSense prevents another company from making anything as good, as accurate, or as cheap.

What is PrimeSense?

PrimeSense makes the Capri, which is a 3D imaging signal processor on a chip.

(picture from 3D Systems)

It is used in the $399 Sense device sold by 3D Systems. How the Apple acquisition of PrimeSense affects the future of the Sense product is not known at this point. 

Similar hardware was developed by Canesta, which was bought by Microsoft in 2010 for use in their Kinect gaming system. The acquisition cost was not disclosed but Canesta had been able to raise $60M from investors before Microsoft bought it. Microsoft is no stranger to billion dollar deals (it paid $1.4B for Visio in 2000).

The PrimeSense Capri chip was discovered in a teardown of the much anticipated "Project Tango" smart phone where it would power its 3D imaging capability¹. 

Stakes Too High for CAD

A pity for Autodesk, who is trying to get into the 3D scanning in a big way with ReCap. With promising technology being gobbled up by tech giants at hyperinflated prices, what are CAD companies to do? Even the biggest CAD companies don't make $3B a year. One of the biggest deals in CAD -- Dassault buying SOLIDWORKS in 1997 for $316M -- was smaller than the PrimeSense acquisition. It's possible that Autodesk was in the running for PrimeSense but it's likely that Autodesk would have folded early as the stakes climbed. 

Enough With the Toys - Let's Do This

It sucks to watch sky high deals being made for gamers and watching television (Apple won't say but rumors are it bought PrimeSense for remote control of its media box) leaving serious technology applications, from Paracosm to ReCap, out in the cold. But while the tech titans can afford to pay billions for toys they must have tomorrow, it is the CAD companies that have the tools and the time to put something together. Most technical professionals don't know they need 3D scanning right now. We have 6 months, a year, maybe more before demand builds up. Why not throw a skunk works design team together? A couple of engineers ought to do it. Tell them to put something together. Or how about sponsoring a maker contest? Sensors, IR transmitters, even microprocessors, are stuff of Radio Shack. An infrared beam emitted and detected, with the direction and the difference in time used to give position. The hardware is cheap. The Leap Motion device does that and it sells for $80. Then the rest of the magic is done in the software. How hard can this be? And who better than CAD companies to do software -- and have design tools?

Maybe this is a chance for CAD companies to actually make something, practice what they have been preaching. It beats crying in your beer about those big bad tech giants.

---

For More Information

1. Google's 'Project Tango' Smartphone Uses Apple's PrimeSense Technology - MacRumors, April 16. 2014
2. Sense by 3D Systems - corporate product page
3. Paracosm - service that does 3D scans of interiors
4. Leap Motion - $79 3D input device
5. ReCap - 3D scanning by Autodesk

 

 

 

 

Autodesk and HSMWorks: We Support SolidWorks Users

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - HSMWorks, Inc., was little more than a small band of 12, happily giving away CAM software¹ for SolidWorks, until their discovery by Autodesk. The CAD giant saw something they liked (apparently, HSMWorks can make toolpaths in fraction of the time it takes other CAM companies) and bought the company. Autodesk boosted their development staff from 4 to 12. Not a huge deal in the CAD, CAM and CAE world -- Autodesk itself has a few thousand developers -- but the HSMWorks deal was very significant in terms of direction and strategy.

Last week, Autodesk assembled us at Autodesk’s dream workshop in San Francisco's waterfront, to tell us about their kick-ass CAM product: HSMWorks for Inventor. But now you are going to have to pay for it².

Yes, the SolidWorks version will still be supported. “Since we bought HSMWorks, we’ve updated the SolidWorks version 4 times,”says Carl White, leader of the Autodesk CAM team, which now also includes Delcam. “We’re CAD-agnostic.”

I have to pinch myself. Autodesk has been in a war with SolidWorks that is going into the 2nd decade. Autodesk treatment of resellers who considered selling SolidWorks, when SolidWorks was getting off the ground in the late 90's was like the arch-villain pushing the button to drop dissenters to their death in James Bond movies. CAD Insiders will remember the in-your-face anti SolidWorks ads on every cab at SolidWorks World in New Orleans. Autodesk sued SolidWorks a few years ago over the use of a graphic³.

Is Autodesk support of SolidWorks the 2nd oddest pair of CAD bedfellows? Only Siemens PLM renting its Parasolid geometry kernel to SolidWorks seems weirder.

 ----------

1. Autodesk claims 5,000-6,000 software free downloads for HSMWorks.

2. An annual license costs $7,500 and includes a seat of Inventor.

3. Both the ad campaign and the lawsuit covered by Ralph Grabowski, see "Adsk vs SW: Comments, " Sep, 25, 2008.

Tata Technologies Manages to Sell Competing CAD Products

DALLAS, TX (Siemens PLM Connection 2013) June 5, 2013 - Sean Slyman devotes himself to Siemens PLM side of the business at Tata Technologies, which he says is not only the biggest reseller of NX, it is the biggest reseller of CATIA and of Autodesk software.

There's nothing small about Tata Technologies. It has a small army of people at its headquarters in Novi, MI and its Innovation Center in Troy, locations no doubt chosen for their proximity to the automotive industry. Yet, Tata Technologies is but a small part of the Tata Group, the huge India conglomerate with annual sales of $100 billion -- that's about 25 times the size of the biggest CAD companies. Tata can buy auto companies (as it did with Great Britain's iconic Jaguar and Land Rover brands) like you and I would buy milk.

But I have to wonder out loud how can one company sell 3 competing product lines. Craig Radomski, VP, explains to me that selling Autodesk, Siemens and Dassault  products actually gives Tata Technologies great flexibility, even the luxury of being able to offer the customer the best of breed choice. "If we go into an automotive manufacturer, Teamcenter may be the best choice. Another customer may appreciate the total cloud solution Autodesk PLM 360 may provide."

Tata Technologies website

I GET IT 

You may know I GET IT for its conputer based instruction for Autodesk products. But there's quite a bit more to it, say Craig Radomski, VP of PLM Solutions, Americas. "We're more about the process of engineering and design than CAD instruction," he says. I GET IT is more likely to have a tutorial in how to design an airplane wing. Sure, application of a CAD program is covered, but that is only part of it. We're more interested in providing instruction in a manufacturing process. To that end, we will put in a module for the CAD part of it, be it Inventor, NX or CATIA."

For more information, see http://www.myigetit.com/

Thomas Publishing Makes Successful Transition to Online

DALLAS, TX (Siemens PLM Connection 2013) June 5, 2013 - In an industry where trade publications get exceedingly thin, like starving dinosaurs, Thomas Publishing may be he best example of a publisher that has made the transition to modern times. They totally abandoned their ThomCats, which seemed it would forever be a standard reference for manufacturers, and went to an online version, now known as ThomasNet.com -- the redundant reference to the web in the name only serve to emphasize its determination.

Freed from paper, Thomas Publishing is now bigger than ever. The numbers speak for themselves:

• 100 million parts
• 600,000 suppliers
• 70,000 part and service categories.

Online Catalog Service

ThomasNet will, for a fee, take your companies products and create an online catalog. Customers can not only see the parts in 3D, they can download the part in a variety of popular CAD formats. 130 companies have already used ThomasNet for this service. As a bonus, the parts are "syndicated," meaning that ThomasNet will add them to their library of parts. The parts exist online as "envelope" models, with internal details and proprietary details unavailable.

Who makes all these parts, I wonder? It turns out ThomasNet keeps workers in the Czech Republic for this purpose. I suggest we have our next meeting in Prague, as opposed to Dallas They politely agree to consider my request.

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?

-----

*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.

__________

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.

Related articles

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.

How to be the Next Autodesk - the ABC of Success, Pt 4

A is for American

The flight home from Bricsys conference in Amsterdam is barely over the North American continent.  I’ve secured a lie-flat seat, but I feel the vexation of Bricsys, and other CAD contenders. I cannot sleep. Autodesk’s lock on the market – what can explain it? But I may be looking down at the answer. America.

Even before the conference, I saw two other great CAD programs. I see a lot of demos. But this was a program I had long since given up on, though when I first saw it 15 years ago, I would have bet the house on it. It was dazzling -- fun, even. Yet, somehow been sidelined, almost to obscurity. Somehow, it had hung on. Two of its best and brightest caught me up with a demo of the latest release. Again, I was dazzled. Why are people not buying this? What I was seeing on the screen was sometimes awesome. I was focusing really hard, too, because the presenters were heavily accented. The English was very good but through the accent…Only then did I realize what challenge the company really had.

They weren’t from America.

Another company showed me a PowerPoint demo. Their software was packed with features. Guaranteed to be compatible, both with data and interface, to AutoCAD. Cheaper than AutoCAD –by far. They had over 300,000 users in their country. Who knew? Who cares?

They weren’t American.

How long did it take Americans to trust foreign cars? Toyota began selling cars in the US in 1957. It took until 1997 for the Toyota Camry to become the #1 car in America. Toyota had the time and the patience. Does Bricsys have that kind of time?

Well, you can’t change your birthplace. But you can change your appearance, the way you present yourself, the people you lead with, your accent.

Is it a cultural bias? Perhaps. We may have finally accepted foreign cars, but American CAD is still the best. Like American doctors, our universities…umm…there’s more, right? AutoCAD was invented here. So was SolidWorks. And MicroStation, ANSYS...The leading CAD and CAE software is American.

To attempt to analyze our bias towards America would probably just get me in trouble but it’s safe to say people relate and are comfortable with others like themselves. We resent any intrusion. We don’t let other countries into our “World” Series. Hey, the French hate it when Americans win their Tour de France.

But some reasons are more practical than cultural. What would a Chinese CAD company know about our architectural standards? Or UNF threads? Or GDT (wasn’t that invented by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers?).

Again, let us take a lesson from SolidWorks, the one and only company  born during the Autodesk reign that thrived. SolidWorks was a quintessential American success story. Founder Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney were one of us. Engineers. Buddies. You could walk up to them at SolidWorks World and chat them up like it was a barbeque. Have a beer. They were cowboys. One earned a fortune playing blackjack. One was a running back. They were like us. They knew us. You knew, somehow, that their software would be also familiar, comfortable, that nice attention to detail, your details… no surprises, no metric system (unless you wanted it), no help files in Kanji characters, that if you got into real trouble you could call either of them personally…okay, that last part may have been beer-induced.

Erik de Keyser, CEO of Bricsys, makers of Bricscad, which may be the leading contender to Autodesk's AutoCAD. Photo courtesy of Bricsys.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Erik de Keyser at the Bricsys conference. Energetic, magnetic, captivating, quite possibly brilliant. American, no. Erik and Bricsys are from Ghent, Belgium. Erik is impressive how he can talk to anyone at any level: a developer about the programming, the press about company goals, a user about features. I’m sure Bricsys is popular in Belgium, its headquarters. Belgians would find comfort in Bricsys. But this would be too confining for Erik, whose Napoleonic plans extend beyond Belgium, beyond Europe.  He looks over the Atlantic towards America.

In a perfect world, this shouldn’t be a problem. We should look at products on their merits. We should pick our CAD program based on its capability, not the accent of its CEO. I know this is not a problem for readers of this fine blog. I mean the others, the unenlightened, the millions.

So what should a company do? How vexing to have a great product but to be ignored by the major world markets?

One reason for the success of Toyota was to become American. Not by giving up its name, or trying to change its DNA. At some point they must have realized also that Americans like to buy American. They started making cars in the US. Toyota now vies for the #1 spot in the US market.

What can a software company do to Americanize? Some quick thoughts:

1. Create an American subsidiary, a real office, not a front
2. Address the customers in American
3. Emphasize the existing American customers to potential customers
4. Get American CAD experts to pick up your products and review it
5. Downplay your origin origin (except if you are offering vacations)
6. Comb through the program and help find and remove any vestige of foreignness.