issue
#318
19 November 2002
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a l k i n g a b o u t c a d
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issue
#318
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Contents Q&A:
ITC Provides ACIS to Licensees Graphisoft, Nemetschek Revenues Down Autodsk's
AEC Strategy, Below
the Radar, - - - - - -
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Q&A: ITC Provides ACIS to Licensees ITC [IntelliCAD Technical Consortium] is licensing ACIS solid
modeling from Spatial. This allows some dialects of IntelliCAD to
display, create, and edit solid models. This is not a straight-forward
announcement, because ITC "merely" provides a CAD platform
to 29 commercial members (who can resell the product) and 15 associate
members (cannot resell), who do development work with IntelliCAD.
As ITC says, "We provide the engine, you provide the solution!" - - - upFront.eZine: I'm trying to understand the process. Is ITC doing the work incorporating ACIS into IntelliCAD, and then commercial ITC members pay Spatial the license fee? Does this mean ITC got ACIS at a lower (or no) price, or is it incumbent on the commercial ITC members pay a fee? Scott Hucke [ITC]: The ITC licenses the technology for full price, and in return offers it to our membership for a reduced initial licensing cost. Each member is responsible for paying their royalties direct to Spatial. Each member who decides to ship ACIS pays the consortium a much lower fee to license the technology. The ITC did the initial development to integrate the ACIS libraries, and now the members have the ability to create more powerful applications using this technology. Surya Sarda [Cadopia]: ITC makes two levels of ACIS license available. One is the ACIS viewer license, which allows you to display/print ACIS solids within a drawing. The other is the full ACIS license, which allows you to create, edit, display and print ACIS solids within a drawing. Members pay a royalty percentage for the full product. The current press announcement relates to the full ACIS license. Some IntelliCAD members have been shipping the product with the ACIS viewer license for a while now. Chad Sanderson [Spatial]: Spatial worked closely with the ITC to offer member companies a blanket OEM agreement for the 3D ACIS Modeler. The agreement allows the nine companies identified to begin development on ACIS. It is in essence a pass-through agreement. My understanding is that in addition to funneling royalties, ITC will work with their member companies to handle support of ACIS, and then Spatial will work with the ITC to ensure all support issues are addressed. This allows for a more efficient method of support, and provides more benefit to ITC members.
upFront.eZine: Why just nine? Surya Sarda: It depends. A member may be focused only on the 2D drafting market, or may decide to add the ACIS functionality later due to many considerations, including budgetary. ITC code makes it very easy to include/exclude any licensed component, such as VBA, image enabler, ACIS, speller, and so on. Scott Hucke: Not all of our members ship IntelliCAD as a stand-alone product. Many are application developers who run their applications using our APIs (LISP, SDS, VBA) or integrate their products directly in our source code. Some members don't sell the software at all, but give it to their customers to support the company's applications. (Georgia Pacific is an example of this type of member.) Many application developers may not need ACIS to successfully implement their products.
upFront.eZine: On their own, BricsNET integrated ACIS into IntelliCAD several years ago. I notice they are missing from the list. Scott Hucke: BricsNET is no longer a member of the consortium. BricsCAD just recently decided to license the ACIS technology from the consortium. Surya Sarda: As far as I know, BricsNET no longer distributes IntelliCAD. BricsCAD picked up some of the pieces from BricsNET. BricsCAD may already have the ACIS license for their Architecturals product. ITC signed an agreement with Spatial, and each member has to sign a separate agreement with Spatial for the royalty part for the full version. The agreements are identical, just that they have to be between the member and Spatial for legal reasons. upFront.eZine: Is ACIS view-only being included in basic IntelliCAD? Scott Hucke: The short answer to your question is that the consortium has no plans to include solid model viewing in the basic technology we license to the members. The members choose what to include with IntelliCAD, and what the name of that product will be. Many members sell 'standard' and 'pro' version of IntelliCAD, although these are not products that the consortium defines. We only license the IntelliCAD source code to the members; how they package their software and with what features is up to them.
upFront.eZine: When do you expect ACIS will be available in IntelliCAD? Scott Hucke: We are planning to release IntelliCAD 2003 just after the first of the year, which will support ACIS solid model creation and editing. Surya Sarda: Our goal is to release this new version in Q1 next year, but the dates are subject to change. - - - Scott Hucke is operations manager of the IntelliCAD Technical Consortium <http://www.intellicad.org >. Surya Sarda is CEO of ITC, and the president of Cadopia, an IntelliCAD developer, and one of the original IntelliCAD programmers <http://www.cadopia.com >. Chad Sanderson is the press contact at Spatial <http://www.spatial.com >. Graphisoft, Nemetschek Revenues Down
Graphisoft Q3 revenues of e4.4million are down 33.2% over a year ago, which the company blames on the delayed launch of ArchiCAD 8, and continuing softness in its major markets, especially Germany. "Restructuring of the Company is proceeding." ArchiCAD 8 was delayed another week; shipping in North America is due to start this week. - - - The Nemetschek Group says 2002 continues to be "difficult." Sales revenue was e77.2 million, down 17.1% from a year earlier, and the net loss was e11.7 million. The company plans to lay off another 200 employees. Cost cutting in the first nine months has has save it e10 million. Autodesk's AEC Strategy, Part V Conclusion by Martyn Day Autodesk feels clearly that Revit offers new possibilities to architects -- should architects want to change their processes, take on more responsibility within the construction industry, and reap greater rewards. Unfortunately, on analyzing Autodesk's current AEC product offerings, the range now looks as fractured as the industry it's trying to sell to:
I am sure all this will change over the coming years, and from the time scales mentioned by Autodesk vp Carl Bass, perhaps over a decade. There's no massive urgency to fit all the products together seamlessly. However, I am also sure that this news will unnerve some users that have invested in ADT. Along with Inventor, Revit is now an important product for Autodesk. Both represent movement away from Autodesk's flagship AutoCAD product. The MCAD side of things demonstrates this can happen extremely quickly. I get the impression Autodesk realizes that this is going to be a much more drawn out process in the AEC space.
Martyn Day is group editor of CAD magazines in the UK. http://www.cadserver.co.uk Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: - - - Florian <ritnytt@semera.se > is editor of the Scandinavian 'CAD & rit-nyttthe' magazine, and he tells me that next week's issue a complete test of Alibre, written in Swedish. "We also have tests of TouchCAD, SketchUp /Mac, Corel Graphics Suite 11, and some about Triforma." http://www.ritnytt.com As stated in my interview with Joe Costello, think3 has introduced its new global professional services organization, headed by newly-appointed Marc Cannon as vp of worldwide consulting, who comes from Cadence Design Systems. GiveMePower launches on November 19 PowerCAD Architect (US$995) with a US$795 introductory price through the end of November, 2002. Free trial at http://www.givemepower.com AmeriCAD, a computer value added reseller, is offering wholesale pricing to members of its Corporate and Personal Buyers’ Clubs. Members receive quotes from AmeriCAD, and make purchases at actual cost from manufacturers or distributors. Corporate fees are based on estimated purchase levels for 12 months, while individuals pay US$250 the first year. http://www.americadsales.com Theorem Solutions has a new series of CADverter products for CATIA V5 and Unigraphics V18, CADDS5, IDEAS Master Series V9, PARASOLID V13, ICEM, and EDS - JT Visualisation format. http://www.theorem.co.uk Intuit introduced its QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition for 2003. http//www.quickbooks.com
New Newsletters/Webzines Cyon Research's CADwire Insights e-newsletter delivers CAD industry analysis, news, and information by email every day or week. Readers can choose from general industry news, mechanical, AEC, Plant, GIS, EDA, and more. To sign up for a free subscription, visit http://www.cadwire.net and click on "CADwire Insights". Digital Media Net is charging US$23.95 a year to view its online info for digital content creation free of ads.
People/Companies on the Move PTC announced that Edwin Gillis, executive vp and cfo, is leaving PTC to join VERITAS Software as its chief financial officer. PTC named Thomas Beaudoin as acting chief financial officer. Autodesk appointed Ken Bado as vp of worldwide sales for the Design Solutions division. Mr Bado was previously with Innoveda, Centric Software, Mentor Graphics, Accgraph, and Intergraph. ‘GIS Monitor’ <http://www.gismonitor.com > is reporting that “Larry Diamond will be leaving his position as vp of GIS at Autodesk. Mr. Diamond has accepted a position in Atlanta at S1 Corporation, a developer of enterprise software for financial institutions. A search has already begun for his replacement. In the meantime, Rick Mascitti, the senior director of engineering for GIS, will serve as interim vice president of the division.”
Redo "Each Alibre user starts out with a local repository; their
data is only on their hard drive. The data is only on the Alibre
server if the user purchases a server repository from us. It's 100
MB of storage space and we charge US$195 for it, or US$100 extra
if they purchase it at the same time as Alibre Design.
It wasn't clear to me if the promised two-hour response time is included in Autodesk's Direct Online Support. Robert Nevin of Autodesk cleared it up: "In the linked FAQ on that page (http//usa.autodesk.com/adsk/item/0,,630316-123112,00.html) addresses the issue.The two-hour response time does not involve additional expense; it's integral to the ADOS option."
Computer News Summaries Initial tests by 'PC World' magazine show that Intel's
new 3GHz hyperthreading Pentium 4 CPUs show little improvement on
applications optimized for hyperthreading, and makes some standard
apps run slower. "Hyperthreading" makes the chip appear
to have two CPUs. MultiMedia Card Association approved a new RS-MMC [reduced size multimedia card] spec, which makes them half the length of current MMC and SD memory cards. [I don't see the point: MMC cards already are too small; I prefer the CompactFlash form factor.] - pdaGeek Trade show promoter Key3Media warned it may need to file for bankruptcy protection after the conclusion of Comdex Fall 2002 this week. Comdex was launched 23 years ago by Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson. [I attended twice, in 1987 and '87, back when the number of attendees was a mere 100,000.] - CNET The new Wrist PDA watch from Fossil runs PalmOS and holds 2MB/2MB RAM/ROM. http://www.fossil.com/tech Microsoft's Windows.Net Server 2003, originally due out in mid-to-late 2001, has now been delayed for a third time until in April, 2003. The company last week scrapped its 'Longhorn' Server, which was to be released in late 2004, and further delays to 'Longhorn' Desktop, Windows XP's successor. - CNET
Market News The upFront.eZine stock index is back: http://www.cadwire.net/to?upfrontezine/stocks . Most CAD shares have made gains in recent days. Workgroup Technology Corporation is acquiring SofTech for US$3.7 million in cash. Microsoft reported quarterly revenue of US$2.48 billion on Windows; $2.38 billion on Office software; and $519 million on Server Platforms. MSN had a negative income of $97 million; CE/Mobility lost $33 million; Xbox lost $177 million; and the Business Solutions division lost $68 million.
Brand New CAD Books "MicroStation
V8 Update - Exercise Workbook"
"MicroStation
V8 Update - CAD Manager Edition"
"MicroStation
CAD Manager - A Course for Managers of Multi-user MicroStation Installations"
SiteMenu
- Users Guide
The WorthWhile Web http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.ArticleNews/relatedstories/gam/20011031/CODRUG
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Letters to the Editor Re: Stock Prices "You might want to point Michael Campbell to http://stocks.cadwire.net , where he can track stock prices for all the stocks that affect the CAD industry, by sector." - Brad Holtz, CADwire
Spin Doctor of the Moment Bill Gates is giving India US$10 million a year to fight HIV, and is giving an additional US$140 million a year to fight Linux. - The Register
Notable Quotable "In the current economic environment, information technology
managers are very risk-averse to new offerings that might let them
down, or add costs to their IT programs -- particularly with regard
to headaches surrounding software maintenance and tuning."
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