Issue #118: 1 September, 1998

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Autodesk Pays $1/2 billion for Canadian Software Company ++

Autodesk is adding to the strength of its Kinetix division with the US$520 million purchase of the Canadian company, Discreet Logic, paid for by a share swap. The purchase is due to be completed by the end of this year. Discreet's revenues were US$152 million in its most recent fiscal year, while Kinetix generated US$40 million for Autodesk. Discreet's 350 employees will become the Discreet division of Autodesk and remain in Montreal PQ Canada. Kinetix and Discreet products will become the New Media Group at Autodesk.

Says Autodesk, "The transaction will combine the technological strength and quality brand name of Discreet, a leading developer of design-driven, advanced systems and new media software for the creation of moving pictures, with Autodesk's new media division, Kinetix...". Discreet's turnkey systems and new media software are used for visual effects and compositing, editing and broadcast production in films, video, broadcast, HDTV, new media, and the Web. Prior to this announcement, the two companies had been working on two-way integration between Discreet's New Media line and 3D Studio software products.

Academic Program from Visio

The Visio Academic Partner program for Technical Products provides educators and school computer labs with license grants of IntelliCAD 98, Visio Technical v5.0, and ArchT v14.5 at no cost to qualifying K-12 school districts, colleges, universities and technical institutes that teach drafting or technical drawing.
Rich Gates, academic programs manager, says, "Because of the prohibitive costs of most CAD tools, students and institutions must make do with a limited number or outdated versions of CAD software." Once accepted into the program, schools receive a Master Kit, which includes:

A license that permits the institution to install the software throughout its computer labs and on any faculty PCs used in drafting or technical drawing instruction;
A master CD-ROM containing the full version of the software product;
One set of documentation (with additional sets available for purchase from Visio).

The program does not provide software for student use on privately-owned PCs, Visio offers students the option to purchase their own copies of Visio software at discounted prices. More info from http://www.visio.com/vap/

ACIS v4.2

Spatial Technologies is shipped ACIS v4.2 August 22, 1998, just 8 weeks after ACIS v4.1. Some Spatial customers already announced product releases based on ACIS 4.2, including Mechanical Desktop v3.0 from Autodesk, who noted that ACIS v4.2 is "up to seven times faster than ACIS v3.0." Enhancements include:

Booleans with complex helical paths are now 30 times faster.
Non-duplicating attribute mechanism.
A new set of callbacks that provide programmers access to each phase of a rollback operation.
More than 100 additional customer requests.

AccuRender v3

Robert McNeel & Assoc is shipping AccuRender 3, their raytrace/radiosity rendering and animation software that runs inside AutoCAD Release 14. New features include:

Indirect lighting using radiosity.
Fully rendered virtual reality.
Lighting fixture libraries.
Walkabout preview.
More realistic materials and plants.

Personal Moves

Malcolm Davies has left Nemetschek for EA Systems.
Richard Stehr has left CalComp after nearly 12 years and is now with GCI Group, a PR firm.

CAD and Internet News

Autodesk
Mechanical Desktop v3.0 is now shipping.

Bentley
Caltrans agrees to buy US$2.1 Million of Bentley products as the transportation department increases its use of MicroStation statewide.

Cimlogic
Toolbox/WD creates panel layout drawings using existing schematics for AutoCAD users (US$1,995).

IMSI
IMSI offers increased DWG and DGN file compatibility with the release of TurboCAD Professional v5.1. Meanwhile, TurboCAD with speech recognition has now shipped 85,000 units in 6 months.

Market News

The XCAD line of software has been acquired by Progressive Software from Citron Technologies.

Letters to the Editor

"I loved your one-liners at the end of the Jini write-up. How about these:

Mayer Rudy G. (NYC) announces "Jini-automated taxi-cabs are more urban-friendly and don't ask for tips either!"
AT&T installed new Jini-operators to answer incoming calls using Jini-matic number codes. Simply punch in the desired look-up code to access the services you desire, like finding the number for 911!"

-- David Stein

"Great Publication! I look forward to every Tuesday morning."
-- Mickey Mantle

"Great newsletter! Keep up the good work."
-- Andy Kedge

Spin Doctor of the Moment

While in Germany, I notice a box of Nestle cereal boasting in large letters, "Baked Apples." In smaller lettering above was the provisio: "With the flavor of".

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