www.upfrontezine.com
Inside this Issue
XP Compatibility
Could Microsoft be leaning on software vendors to "force"
users into buying a more expensive upgrade of XP? At http://www.autodesk.com/windowsxp
, Autodesk lists the compatibility of its products with XP. There
seems to be a pattern: "professional" products, like
AutoCAD and Map, are compatible only with the more expensive Professional
Edition of XP. Consumer products, such as LT and QuickCAD, are
compatible with the less expensive Home Edition (as well as the
Pro edition). Even if no conspiracy is involved, LT's official
compatibility with XP Home makes LT an even better value for the
DWG drafter.
Autodesk's 'Point A Toplines' newsletter last week reported erroneously that the XP compatibility list was "complete"; as of Monday, however, only four products were listed. When I asked, Autodesk replied it would be updated "within a day or so. We are also planning another update in a week for some of the major products." Could the delay in posting the full list be due to compatibility problems? One upFront.eZine reader reported, "I upgraded to Win XP to discover AutoCAD 2000i Mechanical not working. The famous XP Compatibility Wizard doesn't work, either. I am wondering if I will have to spend a few thousand dollars again for a new version of AutoCAD -- is there any way to avoid this with some service pack?" The reader may well have to upgrade. The Autodesk Web site notes that versions earlier than 2002 "of AutoCAD [and LT] are not supported on the Windows XP operating system." Earlier versions of AutoCAD do work, as experimenting users have discovered; the lack of support, however, could become a pressure point for customers to upgrade.
I checked a few other Web sites, and found none with as clear
a chart as Autodesk. (Even if the list isn't complete, Autodesk
is to be congratulated for working on it.) Using searches and
scanning press releases, I found:
* PTC states "Pro/ENGINEER 2001 can immediately support both
home and professional versions of Windows XP and support for Windows
64-bit XP is planned to be announced later this year."
* Alibre says it has achieved the "Designed for Windows XP"
logo, does not specify Home or Pro editions, but implies both.
* SolidWorks says it supports Office XP, but does not mention
Windows XP.
* Other CAD vendors I checked -- EDS (Unigraphics, SolidEdge,
ParaSolid, etc.), Dassault Systemes, Bentley Systems, Graphisoft
-- had nothing posted regarding XP compatibility.
In unrelated news, 'The Register' notes that "Microsoft may soon be running foul of graphics software specialist Autodesk over its use of the phrase 'Suddenly everything clicks' in its UK Windows XP advertising campaign." 'Suddenly everything clicks' is an Autodesk trademark. Autodesk UK told 'The Register' it was seeking legal clarification."
SolidWorks Comes to Visit
Joe Dunne of SolidWorks
made a return visit to the editorial offices of upFront.eZine.
He spent a couple of hours talking about SolidWorks finances (holding
up well) and the latest release of the namesake software. SolidWorks
feels the market is now a two-horse race, between itself and Autodesk
Inventor; PTC is no longer in the game. Inventor is seen as 3-4
years behind SolidWorks. Weaker competitors will disappear from
the mechanical CAD market. SolidWorks, part of Dassault, is letting
Dassault and EDS battle it out for the mega-accounts. The goal
is one million seats of SolidWorks; that'll be a bit of an uphill
climb, since the current number is 160,000 with 69,000 added in
the past year -- roughly triple the Inventor sales rate. I reminded
(warned?) Mr Dunne of the last mechanical CAD vendor to publicly
proclaim it was aiming for one million: XCAD.
Then there was the demo of SolidWorks 2001 Plus, currently in beta. There are too many new features for me to describe, so check out http://www.solidworks.com/downloads/SolidWorks/SolidWorks2001Plus.pdf . Some that caught my attention:
The SolidWorks Gold Partner program ensures apps so certified
have a common look and feel, and are tested by SolidWorks. Mr
Dunne made a point of emphasizing that while there are numerous
third-party apps for Inventor, there is just one that is actually
integrated into Inventor. Clearly, from the many comparisons,
SolidWorks is gunning for Inventor.
Autodesk 3Q01 Earnings Call
Autodesk last week reported that its 3Q net revenues were US$216.4
million, down from US$229.2 million in the same quarter a year
earlier. Net income was US$21.5 million, up from US$18.5 million
a year earlier. Autodesk expects 4Q net revenue to range between
US$245 and US$255 million, resulting in net revenues for fiscal
year 2002 to a range between US$938 and US$948 million. Growth
for next year is predicted to be 6%. [At one time, single-digit
growth would have signaled the death knell of a technology company;
in these days, anything higher than 0% is considered outstanding.]
During the earnings call, ceo Carol Bartz called the market
a "tough selling environment" suffering from "conservative
buying." She is counting on the "obit" of AutoCAD
R14 in mid-January to boost 4Q sales.
AutoCAD LT will now "roll out with AutoCAD." That means
a new release of LT comes out at the same time as AutoCAD. [Rolling
out both at the same time is a pain for us authors -- I whine
-- making for a frantic rewrite pace updating my two AutoCAD and
two LT books at the same time.] In addition, Autodesk is
looking to increase (again) the price of LT because users are
getting more and more functionality out of the software. [Since
Autodesk isn't talking of increasing the price of big brother
AutoCAD, I suppose users aren't getting more functionality out
of it?]
Streamline is still in beta [that surprised me: I thought
it was already "released"] with Release 3 coming
out on December 3. Full "roll out" is sometime next
year. Streamline has 6,000 users in 100 pilot projects. Autodesk
sees Streamline a platform like AutoCAD. Next year, they will
release the first Streamline application, for creating automated
assembly instructions.
Inventor gained 5,300 users in the last quarter, its best quarter
ever. Although Autodesk is emphasizing sales of Inventor, it will
continue to release updates to Mechanical. When an analyst asked
about pricing games, Autodesk blamed PTC and SolidWorks for deep
price cuts [hmmm... in a recent interview, SolidWorks made
a similar accusation of Autodesk]. The university market is
much tougher due to many competitors offering free licenses.
Architectural Studio, currently in beta, is due for a late Q1 release next year (April). A survey being conducted by Autodesk asks if we have any intention buying a tablet PC. As for Microsoft's much-discussed dot.Net platform, Autodesk says it has several applications under development for .Net but would not reveal details.
Analysts listening in on the call wanted Ms Bartz to be more
specific about the subscription program, after she said it would
take two years "to reach maturity." What does "maturity"
mean? Not saying. What % of total sales does Autodesk hope for
subscription revenue? Not telling. [In Europe, the subscription
program has been delayed due to 'operational difficulties,' reports
Martyn Day.] Upgrades to AutoCAD 2002 are at 40%, the same
as other release cycles. "The dots are on top of each other,"
but there is, in Autodesk's mind, "more room for the R14s
to upgrade."
http://www.autodesk.com/investor
Q&A: Five Minutes with Docupoint
Steve Potter heads up Docupoint.
upFront.eZine: Tell me a bit about your company
and its products.
Docupoint: Our primary product is DrawingSearcher,
which combines a search engine, Web server, and DWF/PNG rendition
application for AutoCAD.
Customers use DrawingSearcher to make large archives of AutoCAD
drawings available on their intranet. Think of it as Google for
AutoCAD.
upFront.eZine: It must be a pain to create
all those archives initially!
Docupoint: DrawingSearcher's cataloging process is
fully automatic, so large numbers of drawings can be made available
on-line with almost no labor. Archives of tens of thousands of
drawings are common.
upFront.eZine: You have some other software
products, as well?
Docupoint: Our other products include Whip-n-Post!,
a family of DWG-to-DWF conversion utilities. And our soon to be
released Zing! DWF viewer. [Interested upFront.eZine readers
are welcome to download a preview of Zing from
http://www.docu-point.com/upfront.htm .]
upFront.eZine: From what I've read, it sounds
to me like your DWF viewer is diverging from Autodesk's direction.
Docupoint: Autodesk's viewers are getting larger and,
I believe, less directed to the original vision of WHIP [plug-in
for Web browsers]. Our goal is to make a very compact (less than
400KB) highly-directed product for the DWF-only market running
on multiple platforms, including Pocket PC and Netscape browsers.
I like to think that we are complementing Autodesk's products
and direction.
One of our primary reasons for developing our own viewer was
to provide better integration between DrawingSearcher and the
viewing application. (Viewer problems are the most common tech
support question we get with DrawingSearcher.) Because the Zing!
viewer is less then 400KB, we anticipate installing it automatically
as a downloadable CAB(inet) file.
upFront.eZine: Does anyone actually use DWF?
Or is it being swamped by other Internet vector standards, like
VML and XML?
Docupoint: Autodesk created the DWF format as
a published, open standard to encourage the development supporting
applications. We've found that almost all our DrawingSearcher
users enable the DWF and PNG (preview image) publishing options.
DWFs are much smaller then DWGs, and load very quickly. I've found
that one of the most common reasons for using DWF files is to
protect the original DWG file from un-authorized downloads and
editing.
As for other formats, SVG (simple vector graphics) seems to have
potential, but so far it has not been realized. Because we concentrate
on publishing the 2D representation of DWG files, we've not gotten
involved in VML. I do notice a renewed interest in the use of
the PDF format for drawing publishing.
upFront.eZine Who do you consider your competition?
Docupoint: That is an interesting question.
There is no product that provides functions similar to DrawingSearcher.
At some level we complete with Cyco and Synergis; we are, however,
solving a different problem. Docupoint's strength is providing
enterprise-wide search-and-publish capabilities for large drawing
archives.
Below the Radar
A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read
elsewhere:
3D Systems of the USA won a law suit in France against EOS of Germany in a case of patent infringement for CO2 laser sintering of powered materials. The court's judgment includes payment of damages and legal costs, and an injunction preventing EOS from selling its plastic laser sintering systems in France. 3D Systems had acquired the patent when it acquired DTM.
Computers for Construction 2001 (a.k.a AEC Systems Fall) had 3,973 attendees last week in the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Penton had projected 7,000 visitors. The 2002 show will be held at the Dallas (TX USA) Convention Center, October 22-24, 2002. http://www.aecsystemsfall.com
Autodesk will be shipping the newly-renamed Autodesk VIZ 4 [used to be 3D Studio VIZ, or was that 3d studio viz?] in December. http://www.autodesk.com/viz
'Cadence' magazine may well win an award by awarding
37 Editor's Choice awards in its December issue. [Lessee...
did we leave out anyone?]
Computer
News Summaries
Senseboard (US$150) and Samsung (US$50) plan
to ship "air" keyboards early next year. Sensors attached
to your determine which "keys" your fingers would press.
"To use the Senseboard device, you simply slip a soft rubber
pad onto each palm and start typing as if a keyboard was in front
of you." - http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,70568,00.asp
The SEC has charged 15 NVIDIA employees who bought stock on a tip that the graphics chip maker would win the contract providing GPUs for Microsoft's Xbox. The defendants (nine engineers; a contract worker employed in NVIDIA's human resources department; a financial analyst employed by the company; and four friends and relatives) racked up US$1.7 million in illegal profits in March 2000. After the announcement of the Xbox win, NVIDIA shares more than doubled in price. - Reuters
The Opera Web browser is now in beta for v6. One new feature is "Hotclick," where double-clicking a word displays a pop-up menu with dictionary, encyclopedia look-up, translation, etc. Download from http://www.opera.com/download/
Quickoffice Conference combines wireless networking with Cutting
Edge Software's Quickoffice (word processing, spreadsheet,
and charting for PalmOS). By holding a conference, members work
together in real-time, regardless of location, on their wireless-equipped
PalmOS devices. http://www.cesinc.com/solutions/es_conference.html
Market
News
Eastman Kodak announced plans to acquire ENCAD,
a pioneer of wide-format inkjet plotters. Purchase price is US$25
million worth of Kodak stock, and maybe some cash. ENCAD will
become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kodak.
The
WorthWhile Web
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/22850.html
SecurityFocus
"Researchers probe Net's 'dark address space'"
http://216.194.77.198/articles/2001/november/011116_Xbox/011116_Xbox.htm
Van's Hardware
The XBox Dissected (scroll down past large photo).
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7821341.html
"Employee sabotaged Superdome tests"
Fascinating story of how an HP employee sabotaged benchmark testing.
http://www.improb.com/projects/park-rules/park-rules-top.html
The Annals of Improbable Research
"Park Prohibitions Competition: Which Park 'No's the Most?"
CAD
Trivia
Q9. What AutoCAD add-on software was featured in
the 1991 movie "Father of the Bride"?
Clue: The product is no longer available.
- Doug Barense
Look for the answer at http://www.upfrontezine.com/trivia.htm
Spin Doctor of the Moment
"Alberta's 36 Per Cent Piracy Rate Is Lowest in Canada"
"Ontario Has Lowest Software Piracy Rate in Canada"
- Two press releases posted last week by Canadian Alliance
Against Software Theft. [Canada could use an alliance against
Truth Theft.]
Notable
Quotable
"While you can be heavily fined for putting down false details
on a [British] census form, it does not apply to the religion
question."
- Kieren McCarthy
Contact!