November
4, 2003
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#361
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- - - C
O N T E N T S - - - EDS
to Sell Portion of PLM: - - - - PTC - Dassault Systems - Intergraphy - - - - And other regular columns. - - - Donate - - - Write - - - (ADVERTISMENT) Updated and Expanded for AutoCAD 2004! Tailoring AutoCAD 2004 is the first book for AutoCAD 2004. Download as a 204-page e-book in PDF format (US$24.95) or on CD ($29.95). Covers all areas of customization, from changing the user interface to writing toolbar macros and LISP routines. Click here to sample preview pages and place your order.
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You know what wrong with computers? I install the updated driver for an HP printer (on USB), and then the HP DVD drive (on FireWire) no longer exists in Windows. Solid Edge v15 In mid-October, I drove south to David Cohn's home-office near Bellingham. His place is in a lovely rural tree-hugging location, not far from the Pacific Ocean. Kris Kasprzak was there from EDS to tell us about the next release of Solid Edge, the 3D solids and surface modeling software. The demo began not with Solid Edge, but Insight Connect acting as the front-end to the design process. With a Web browser interface, Insight handles:
New features in Solid Edge include D-Cube's interactive physics analysis. Move a part, and if it bumps into another part, it is also moved (if able to). I appreciated the templates that automatically generate 2D views of 3D models -- no need to specify the types of views. Other "new" features are catch-up from other CAD products, such as zoom to selection, and importing AutoCAD polylines with width. You can read about all new features at www.solidedge.com/prodinfo/prod_overview.htm The software is due to ship late November or early December (US$4,995). To help boost revenues, EDS is introducing two new versions:
EDS says that sales of Solid Edge increased 7.5% over the previous year. The software may soon have its fourth owner, from its origin at Intergraph to UGS, to EDS, and to an as-yet-unspecified spin-off.
EDS Sell-off of PLM A problem EDS faces is a shortage of cash. It is an outsourcing company, which means it puts up a lot of money in buying equipment and hiring workers when it takes on outsourced businesses. For example, its biggest outsourcing deal is the US Navy Marine Corps Intranet, a 10-year contract that involves shifting 180,000 "seats" to EDS. The contract is suffering from delays and cash shortages. In late October, EDS expanded its credit facility to US$900 million. The pay-off in revenue from this project won't be until 2005. One way to get cash is to sell less important parts of a company. The PLM Division (CAD software) provides just 4% of revenues, but could bring EDS $1.4 billion when sold. Melissa Davis of The Street describes the PLM Division "an underperforming asset that has dragged down results in the past." EDS wants to sell less than 50% of PLM, but analysts wonder why not 100%. UBS analyst Adam Frisch says, "We are somewhat puzzled that it would look to divest only a minority interest of the PLM segment." After all, who would spend a lot of money to NOT control the development of Solid Edge, NX, and the other products. The ceo of EDS wants cash from selling PLM by early next year. Now might not be a good time to sell the PLM division:
Quarterly Conference Calls Parametric Technology - 4Q03 Revenues are down and losses are up for PTC. CADCAMnet.com calls it "The incredible shrinking PTC." Total revenue for the year was US$0.67 billion, down 9.4% from the year before -- the 4th straight year of declines. The problem is that increasing sales of its PLM software (WindChill) are not sufficient to offset the falling sales of CAD (Pro/Engineer). The company expects losses to continue in this quarter, partly due to $25 million budgeted for aggressive cost-cutting. Despite the bad news, ceo Richard Harrison says, "We were pleased with our execution this quarter, as we met our revenue targets while implementing an aggressive cost reduction program." The company expects MCAD sales to continue flat in 2004, but one analyst wondered if PTC's CAD sales will continue to decline due to market saturation. What about EDS' spinoff of PLM? "We're not paying too much attention to that," but then PTC added, "We are going after some of their accounts" and hoping to benefit from the uncertainty created by the sale. About 45% of Pro/E users are now on Wildfire. Expect Wildfire 2.0 in Q2. In the bad news category, a judge gives the go-ahead for RAND Worldwide's $100 million law suit against PTC. - - - Dassault Systemes - 3Q03 In these economically stagnant times, competitors wonder how it is that Dassault is able to grow -- as much as 15% in the last quarter measured in US$. Answer from Dassault: "We believe our revenue results demonstrate that we continue to gain market share from our competitors." True, competitors tend to be in a downward trend. "I don't think that acquisitions increase market share," cautions the ceo of Dassault. The Asia:Americas:Europe market share is 27:28:45. Asia had the highest growth for Dassault, while Europe was flat. Software subscriptions represent 56% of revenue. For Q4,Dassault is projecting e225 million in revenues, but the Euro-US exchange rate is unpredictable. "The business climate [in the USA] has shown some signs of recovery, but excess production capacity still exists. As a result we see that companies are somewhat hesitant to make investment decisions." Translation: CAD sales are still soft. CATIA units increased 6% from a year ago, with V5 seats making up 76%. SolidWorks’ units increased by 9%. Dassault notes that the average price of SolidWorks is US$5,437, of which 45% is the average dealer margin. Dassault is excited about its entry into the AEC market -- "a domain that we have not been directly involved with to date." They are paying Gehry Technologies $2 million to configure CATIA V5 architects, engineers, and contractors. - - - Intergraph - 3Q03 Is Intergraph still a CAD software company? No, going by questions from financial analysts. Every single one dealt either with Intergraph's aggressive share repurchase program or its intellectual property revenues. The company repurchased 5.4 million shares in the last two years, 900,000 in the last three months. And it plans to buy back another 12 million. (Companies buy back shares to improve the stock price.) At $26.47, the Intergraph share price is second only to that of Dassault Systemes. Intergraph would like to see Bentley Systems go public so that Intergraph can profit from its investment in Bentley. Revenue for Q3 was US$133.6 million, similar to earlier quarters. Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I find interesting: Martin Owings tells me he's launched a company that's a national professional services provider to CAD dealers. You can learn more about High Bridge Technologies at www.highbridgetech.com All MultiSUITE structural products are now available for AutoCAD 2004. MultiSTEEL and MultiREBAR create drawings of steel and reinforced concrete bar structures. The software also works with AutoCAD LT in 2D. www.multisuite.com AVEVA's Plant Design software will use AutoCAD for its 2D design component. www.aveva.com Spicer releases Imagenation 7.3 and Image aX viewing and markup software, featuring support for SolidWorks, MS Office 2003, batch printing, and .NET compatibility. Download eval version from www.spicer.com/Product_web/download.htm (after registration). Collaboration Gateway 3.0 from Proficiency features associative support for external references, incremental data exchange, and enhanced universal product representation. www.proficiency.com SoftCover says they replaced the old vectorization engine with a new one in Version 7 of Scan2CAD, their raster-to-vector conversion software. www.softcover.com SolidWorks adds Print3D for easier rapid prototyping. You select the RP vendor, and SolidWorks 2004 sends the model via email for a price quotation. www.solidworks.com Autodesk announces version 5 of Buzzsaw.com, as well as an API [applications programming interface] for its online service. www.buzzsaw.com And, Epson hopes CAD users will notice its C-size Stylus Pro 4000 inkjet printer (US$1,795). Its black-white prints are light-fast for 100 years. www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/WideFormat/WideFormatDetail.jsp
Seminars & Conferences 8th Designers 3D CAD Challenge is at the World Trade Center Boston Amphitheater during BuildBoston2003, November 19. www.buildboston.com COE Spring 2004 takes place in Miami Beach FL, April 25-28, 2004. www.coe.org/events/upcoming.cfm
Newsletter/Webzine Watch TenLinks.com starts a free newsfeed service for Web sites. More info from www.tenlinks.com/news/newsfeed/ Autodesk reduces the frequency of its 'Toplines' e-newsletter from monthly to quarterly. The publisher of 'CADalyst' purchases arch-rival 'Cadence' magazine, its mailing list, and related newsletters. The sale is no surprise as print magazines fall out of favor. The last issue for 'Cadence' is November, and then its name disappears into the CAD history book. An interview by TenLinks.com is remarkable for its lack of answers from the publisher of CADalyst: www.tenlinks.com/NEWS/PR/cadalyst/110303_dana.htm
People/Companies on the Move The OpenDWG Alliance changes its name to Open Design Alliance, because it supports more than just the DWG format. New logo and new URL at www.opendesign.com . In related news, Evan Yares leaves Cyon Research to spend more time as president of Open Design Alliance. Mr Yares was a co-founder and the cto of Cyon. Also, Cyon adds Peter Marks to its board of directors. Raindrop Geomagic opens Raindrop Geomagic GmbH in Cologne, Germany to serve customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In related news, the company acquires Cadmus Consulting of Budapest; its ceo becomes the cto of of Raindrop Geomagic. LMS International appoints Philip Muls to the position of General Manager LMS Indirect Sales Operation. SolidWorks hires Hugh Jefferson Ray III as chief operating officer. Intergraph names Reid French as executive vp of strategic planning and corporate development.
Computer News Summaries Adding too much RAM memory slows down Pentium 4 and AMD computers, says a report at firingsquad.com/hardware . With more than 2 DIMMS installed, Intel motherboards increase their latency (equivalent to slower acceleration), while AMD motherboards slow down their bandwidth (equivalent to lower speed). Acer complains that "the cost of a tablet PC is US$200 more than its notebook counterpart. Of this difference, the hardware cost is only between $30 and $60. The majority of the difference comes from the Microsoft Tablet PC OS license." - news.com.com/2100-1005_3-5095467.html?tag=nefd_top
Market News Continuing its acquisitions binge, IMSI buys the AEC symbols and domain names of CADSymbols.com and CADSymbols.net from Cardiff Consultants. (Purchase price was not revealed.) As a result, CADsymbols.com changes its name to CADtoday.com. D.H. Brown Associates is being acquired by Australian-based Ideas International. Geometric Software Solutions' quarterly profits are up 29% over the same quarter a year ago. Revenues at MatrixOne fall to US$23.2 million, down from $31.1 million a year earlier. The company suffers a loss of $6.7 million. The upFront.eZine stock index is at www.cadwire.net/to?upfrontezine/stocks
Letters to the Editor Re: Bentley Pumps PDF "The news that Bentley are going to make PDF plotting one of MicroStation's core features is excellent. I hope that the rumor of PDF references become a reality as soon as possible. "We create information using a range of applications, from Word to Adobe InDesign, all of which can be exported to PDF to be read by anyone that we need to communicate with, regardless of whether they are a client CEO or a CAD specialist. "I see no advantage in complicating this situation with DWF, especially if Autodesk are going to increase complexity by adding all sorts of bells and whistles to DWF. "And
yes, Adobe really need to do something about Adobe Reader 6's start
sequence, the time it takes to load is ridiculous." The editor replies: "All documents can be stored in PDF. In reaction, Autodesk has released a printer driver version of DWF, which _could_ do the same thing."
"Autodesk wants to add value later in the design process. To make this possible, they need a file format that extends beyond the realm of architects and engineers who currently collaborate using DWG. "They
really need to push DWF, so that downstream users can take advantage
of the tools they wish to produce. With PDF, Autodesk does not have
the flexibility to solve customer problems the way they do with
DWF."
"As a user of DataCAD, I need to point
out to you that DataCAD included the ability to create PDF files
starting with version 9. If I'm correct, DataCAD was the first AEC
program to have the ability to create PDF files." The editor replies, "The significance of the Bentley announcement is that Adobe is working to make PDF better for 2D CAD drawings, something that may eventually benefit DataCAD users."
"Am I taking a too-simplistic view (again) with regard to the PDF-for CAD-issue? What are these people trying to do that is so tough? Here's what we do for most of our customers: "We buy a low-buck PDF creator software called PDF Factory <www.pdffactory.com> for less than US$50. We 'print' each file through this software to create PDF files. We email the files to clients, who post them on their servers, print them, release them, send them out for quotes, whatever they want. "This
isn't very hard -- it seems like 'integrating' PDF into the software
shouldn't be a big deal. What else are they trying to do?"
"Our DgnXchange product already converts MicroStation to PDF (and DWF, DWG, DXF, JPEG, TIFF and many other formats). It is extremely fast and produces very tight output files by using various PDF encryption and compression technologies. "We
are very confident that Bentley will not match the speed, quality
or compact size when they finally ship a product."
Re: PLM "I am sorry to ask, What is PLM? Is it
a company name or some type of software or service?" The editor replies, "Yes, and a floor polish <g>. PLM is short for 'product lifecycle management.' It is software that is supposed to track products from moment of birth until their death. Problem is, corporations aren't buying the concept." - - - "I love your ezine. It's the only one
I've kept up with over the last four years. Keep up the great work."
"Since the first time I read your weekly report, I've discovered a way to better understand this industry. Every Tuesday morning I am excited to know the freshest information from the market. "We are daily flooded by full colored e-mail magazines, but no one comes close to your upFront. It's wonderful to know that you decided to reject the fancy HTML appearance, choosing to go to the core of the information, just with text. "Considering
that you also make your money with Autodesk products [through writing
books], even so you still remain independent from the big mammoth.
You have gained my definitive respect by keeping your information
clear and the deepest. Keep the great work, Ralph."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Today’s successful women aren’t usually
interested in how technology works, they are interested in how it
enhances their life. The Julien Macdonald laptop bag for Intel is
designed to match the new type of laptop enabled by Intel Centrino
mobile technology and the women that use it: smart, chic, and connected."
Notable Quotable "In the ad world, nothing says individuality
like conformity." |
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