www.upfrontezine.com
Intergraph & Bentley Get Cozy
Intergraph (one of the original CAD companies, and originally
called M&S Computing) and Bentley Systems have had a hate-love
relationship going on 15 years. Some of the five Bentley bothers,
after whom the company is named, figured out how to display Intergraph
drawings on an IBM PC -- without needing Intergraph's IGDS CAD
system. That was MicroStation I in 1986. When they began adding
editing ability with MicroStation 2, Intergraph wasn't too pleased
seeing its high-margin product eroded, and sued Bentley Systems.
In the course of the proceedings, in 1987 Bentley convinced Intergraph
to market and distribute MicroStation, while Bentley did the development
work. Intergraph also invested in 50% of Bentley. By 1995, Bentley
was sure enough of itself to take over the marketing and distribution
of MicroStation. Then came: another lawsuit; Intergraph reducing
its ownership to 33%; more distribution agreements; and now another
agreement.
Announced late last week, Bentley will acquire three of Intergraph's product lines:
In turn, Intergraph:
The purpose of the software swap is to let both companies concentrate
what each does best. The deal is said to be worth US$42 million,
but isn't expected to be completed until 3Q00.
In another announcement made last week, Bentley Systems announced
its new education initiative launched by Joel Orr. Called the
Bentley Education Network (BEN), it is due to focus on research,
job and sponsorship networking, and charitable donations that
enhance engineering education and projects.
"In response to the article titled 'Do CAD Brands Matter
Anymore?' my answer is an unequivocal Yes. The answer might be
No to shoes and other consumer items.
"Drafting is not CAE (computer aided engineering); it is
the documentation phase of the engineering process. I quickly
become bored when reading ezines full of AutoCAD hints, tips,
bug fixes, and LISP routines that are required because the software
is so limited in its capabilities to allow progression of the
CAE process.
"CAE and 3D solid modeling, on the other hand, allows the
user to apply maximum effort to areas such as innovation, creativity,
and good engineering. The good CAE packages, such as Pro/Engineer,
Catia, Unigraphics and SolidWorks, are good because the development
is managed by engineers, not programmers. The programmer is a
resource who writes the code, which meets the intent of the development
manager. These packages are good because they meet the needs of
the end user, who requires a stable, accurate, scalable, dependable,
and verifiable software product tool.
"I would like to see a clearer distinction between drafting
and computer-aided engineering in ezines such as yours. Love your
ezine keep; up the good work."
- Ian G. Falconeer
"I think this is a somewhat misdirected argument as it
applies the concept of branding to an industry with highly functionally
differentiated products rather than an industry with negligibly
differentiated products (e.g., even -gasp!- athletic shoes.)
"Ultimately, I agree with you 100% -- compatibility of the
drawing files _is_ more important than the brand name. By making
the argument 'Buy the CAD package your clients buy,' and implying
that compatibility is the primary goal, you would limit your readers
to a .DWG world, for, let's face it, compatibility may be the
client's goal. But the user's goals and the client's goals don't
necessarily coincide (the ultimate goal of the successful project
certainly does remain shared.)
"CAD is about productivity -- every sales pitch, every cost-justification,
and every marketing campaign focus on how to make talented and
valuable design professionals more valuable by being more productive.
Don't condemn your readership to a lowest-common-denominator world
based simply on file formats. Good translators exist, and are
in common use. Lowest-common-denominator file formats ultimately
will dumb-down our profession. This would benefit neither ourselves
nor our clients."
- Robert Anderson, Diehl Graphsoft
"My answer would be that brand does matter if the company
behind the brand is still engaged in quality control and actively
articulating design specifications to the production team. In
my 15 years in the business, I have seen off-shore production
used successfully and disastrously.
"Several years ago I contracted to write documentation for
a drafting program. About halfway through the project, it was
getting to the point where I was communicating more with the programmers
in Europe than the designers and product managers in the USA.
Before the product shipped, entire sections of the program when
through drastic change, as product designers and the programming
team fought for control."
- Randall Newton, Bentley Systems
"I would suggest that brand is increasing in importance
for the very reasons that have been used to suggest that it is
decreasing. The reason people will pay AutoCAD or Bentley for
a particular piece of software is that they understand (or hope
they do!) what the company is trying to do and what level of frustration
they will have to deal with in getting the stuff to work. The
value of that 'comfort level' is the price difference between
Bentley and the no-name software company. Even as the value of
the underlying product becomes less important the value of everything
else a brand represents becomes more important.
"In some way this is the dream that Amazon is pursuing.
Once everything is online as a commodity with price the only difference,
Amazon wants to be the brand identified with all the good things
that wrap around your online spending: ease of use, confidence
of security, fast delivery, simple return policy, etc."
- JD Fentie, HATCH Engineering
"As a marketing professional, I can tell you that where
a product is manufactured, or who makes it, is irrelevant to a
brand, and should be to the consumer as well. A brand mirrors
the quality of the product and the company behind it. Does the
product work well, how well does customer support support the
product etc. Brands have lost their glimmer many times over the
years, but they keep coming back. When a product becomes a commodity,
all that's left to distinguish the product is the brand. "
- Scott Cullins, Collabware
The editor replies: "In my experience with running
shoes, the Chinese-made ones are better built than the Canadian-made
shoes.
"I have to admit that my theory (the file format is all
that matters) does not explain why IntelliCAD and VDraft have
sold poorly against the similarly-priced AutoCAD LT. So, brand
names do matter!"
"1. It was Visionary Design Systems (not visual).
2. It is VERY different than the Autodesk offerings.
3. Aluminum binders and IronCAD are still available."
- Linda Stasko, Alventive (nee VDS)
"With the new sites -- iDesign and Point A -- I have to
go the two sites and dig much deeper. The iDesign page has hardly
changed since the start apart from the announcement that the Point
A site was up and running. It takes many more clicks to go where
you want, and you don't have the overview you used to have with
the old Autodesk page.
"I'm only indirectly blaming Autodesk. Unfortunately, other
CAD companies are all falling into the i- or e- trap. Their homepages
contain more and more hype, and less and less content. No wonder
the shares on NASDAQ are falling. Being trained as an architect/designer,
the design community has always been chasing new trends and hype.
For a long time design -- especially graphic design -- has been
design for design's sake.
"Maybe the day will come where everybody has gotten enough
of the hype, and we will all go back to the drawing board to rediscover
what design is about: Delivering information in a clear and concise
way.
"Enough is enough. I already feel much better. Enjoy the
spring sunshine."
- Finnur P. Frodason, Architect FHI, Iceland
CollabWare hires Jeff Jones as vice president and chief financial officer.
A law firm has launched a class-action lawsuit against Autodesk
and its executives for making "very positive but false statements"
in late 1998 and early 1999. The suit claims Autodesk shares were
artificially inflated by positive statements concerning the sales
of AutoCAD R14; European sales, strong vertical sales; VIP upgrades;
lack of Y2K issues; successful development of AutoCAD 2000; and
the limited impact of the purchase of Discrete Logic. The firm
is seeking to recover US$2 billion on behalf of shareholders who
were alleged to have paid too much. http://www.whafh.com
In happier news, Autodesk this week will be telling the media
about ASP (application server provider) frontends for more Autodesk
products. New Autodesk products in development are being developed
as an ASP-based product first, then in the CD-ROM/box edition.
Microsoft will try once again to merge its two operating system lines. Windows 9x and Windows 2000 (formerly Windows NT) are due to become an identical pair (as a consumer edition and a business edition) in 12 to 18 months. "Now it's really going to happen," insists Shawn Sanford, Group Product Manager of the Microsoft Consumer Windows Division. The new OS will include useless features like being able to play digital music on a PC without starting the operating system [sounds like an MP3 player to me, but not as easy to carry around].
http://www.softcosys.com
CAD Standards Resource Center
A resource for CAD standards.
http://www.engineering.com
RAND Technologies
The not-yet-opened Web portal from North America's largest CAD
reseller.
http://www.iami.org/aci.html
Association of Construction Inspectors
His work was done. It was up to me to connect the computer with the modem.
"Keep up the great work!"
- G Springs