July 27, 2004
Issue
#396
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O N T E N T S From the Editor PTC
3Q04 Financials SolidWorks
2D Position Paper Another
Win for Intergraph
Below
the Radar Write - - - Donate - - - Look for additional,
nearly-daily CAD commentary at our Weblog: (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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From the Editor In December, we launched our first Weblog, called "WorldCAD Access." It supplements upFront.eZine with CAD commentary more frequent than weekly. Last week, we launched a second Weblog -- "The Canon S1iS Fan" covers digital photography in general, and Canon's S1 IS digital camera specifically. You can visit our new Weblog at worldcadaccess.typepad.com/s1is/ - - - We have two copies remaining of Ralph Grabowski's "The Illustrated AutoCAD 2005 Quick Reference" book. It's 842 pages long, and 1.1kg heavy (2.4 lbs). Reader David Cerruti reports, "The AutoCAD 2005 Quick Reference has the highest signal-to-noise ratio of any manual I've seen." These last two signed copies are available for a $25 donation, each. - - - One last reminder that we are shutting down our mailbox next week, so remember to replace "PO Box 3053, Sumas WA, 98295-3053" with our street address: upFront.eZine
Publishing, Ltd. Phone numbers, et al, remain the same.
Along with the rest of the industry, Parametric Technology's financial fortunes are improving, with the company now reporting profits. The company has $257.7 million in the bank. Perhaps now we can banish the rumors of PTC looking for a buyer. (How well is the CAD industry doing? Autodesk shares last week hit their all-time high at $43, split-adjusted. Intergraph is within a few dollars of their all-time high, which was w-a-y back in 1988. Dassault is at about 45% of its all-time high, attained in 2001. PTC has a long way to reach its former glory, with the current stock price 8x lower than its all-time high in 1998.) Revenue grew 2% over the previous quarter to US$165.2 million. Profit improved from $3.2 million (Q2) to $16.1 million. Part of the improvement is due to the lowered cost of cost-cutting. Laying-off people is expensive: last quarter, PTC spent $16.7 million doing that; this quarter "just" $3.5 million. Interesting to us, the quarter-over-quarter growth came from its PLM software (Windchill), which increased by $8.7 million in sales, whereas its CAD software revenue decreased by $3.5 million. Orders from its resellers fell 6%. The difference caught the attention of financial analysts listening in. One asked how PTC sees future growth. The reply: 15-20%
for PLM How can you take sales from competitors? asked another analyst. The response, at first, was oblique: "A pretty good quarter, considering the malaise." Then, PTC provided a five-stage process of getting customers to make incremental switch, through WindChill, Interlink, Pro/E, and PDM/Link. For next quarter, PTC expects revenue between $165 and $172 million. It was coincidence, we are sure, that immediately after Joe Dunne of SolidWorks left our office in his rental car that an email arrived from Autodesk, subtly titled, "Offering another perspective...". The attachment "SolidWorks 2D Position Paper" tries to show that the new IntelliCAD-based DWGeditor featured in the not-yet-shipping SolidWorks 2005 is A Very Poor Idea. We figure Autodesk has simmering paranoia over IntelliCAD, the software that -- at one time, in the previous millennium -- came closest to unseating AutoCAD as Master of the Universe. Autodesk's focus, money, and programming have left IntelliCAD crawling. Developmentally, IntelliCAD is somewhere between Release 12 and 14. While the SolidWorks effort (DWGEditor is meant for touching up .dwg files, not replacing AutoCAD) is interesting, we find it more interesting that Autodesk ignores MicroStation V8 -- a more dangerous product, in our opinion. Both MicroStation and SolidWorks edit .dwg files: big deal; so do other CAD competitors. Only MicroStation embeds the .dwg data in its .dgn files. - - - After Autodesk released their position paper into the wild, we found what we think to be errors. Here are excerpts of corrections we sent Autodesk pr last week: "The technology has been available for many years and has gone by the name of IntelliCAD or more recently Bricscad." The sentence implies IntelliCAD recently changed its name to Bricscad. IntelliCAD is like Linux, in that there are several flavors. Bricscad is the name of one flavor, based in Europe; SolidWorks uses the CADopia flavor, based in California. "It does not use any original Autodesk tools or software to correctly read or write .DWG files." True, but misleading. Autodesk refuses to provide help in decoding .dwg files, even after invitations from the Open Design Alliance. Autodesk ceo Carol Bartz calls DWG "the standard," but does not allow the standard to be documented, as standards are. And, we suspect, Autodesk would refuse SolidWorks use of its AutoCAD Engine. "If this reverse-engineered technology erroneously reads or writes a dimension or note, it is likely that parts will be inaccurately manufactured...." It is true that IntelliCAD does not read .dwg files perfectly. However, the examples given -- dimensions and notes -- are not problems. These (and most other entities) are read and written perfectly. "IntelliCAD has difficulty with even simple objects like AutoCAD .shx fonts...." In fact, IntelliCAD includes .shx fonts, and displays them correctly. It is, however, possible to set up IntelliCAD (as well as AutoCAD) so that fonts do not load correctly, thus creating the impression that the text is being rendered incorrectly. Another example was, however, illustrated correctly by Autodesk: tolerance values are displayed in IntelliCAD 4 with placeholder text, "tol" or "val". Another Win for Intergraph After 1.5 years in court, Bentley Systems lost a suit brought on by Intergraph over underpayment of fees. Bentley is to pay US$7.9 million to former partner Intergraph. The history: Four years ago, Intergraph sold its civil engineering software to Bentley for $13.5 million, plus a year of maintenance renewals from former customers of Intergraph. Intergraph disputed the amount that Bentley felt was owing; Bentley counterclaimed that Intergraph provided an inaccurate renewal schedule of the maintenance contracts. The vedict: The judge awarded Intergraph $6.7 million, $0.77 million in interest, and $0.41 million in court costs. Neither Intergraph nor Bentley publicized the case, which was reported by the Huntsville Times. http://www.al.com/business/huntsvilletimes Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that we found interesting: UGS is proving it won't cut off competitors from its recently-acquired D-Cubed technology. IMSI will integrate the 2D Dimensional Constraint Manager (geometric constraint solutions of 2D sketches) into TurboCAD Professional. www.d-cubed.co.uk In its first financial results since becoming private, UGS reports Q2 revenue of US$236.2 million, up 11%. The company could reach $1 billion next year. Etrage provides Web access and batch processing for PSI (Plot Service for Pro/INTRALINK). Eval copy from www.etrage.com/download_form.htm nPower Software has Power Solids/Power Booleans 3.0 for Rhino. www.nPowerSoftware.com Jimmy Bergmark releases JTB FlexReport 1.3 -- a reporting tool for applications using FLEXlm software licensing. More at www.jtbworld.com/jtbflexreport SketchUp 4.0 is shipping from @Last Software. A "What's New in 4.0" video tutorial can be watched at www.sketchup.com/training.php Greg Taylor is no longer with RAND Worldwide. Nemetschek North America has a maintenance update, v11.0.1, for VectorWorks, ARCHITECT, LANDMARK, SPOTLIGHT, and MECHANICAL 11. www.nemetschek.net/downloads/vectorworks/version11/11.0.1.html AVEVE says its VANTAGE Plant Design Review 6.2 represents major advancements in navigation, information retrieval, and overall virtual reality experience. www.aveva.com And Tailor Made Software updates CADViewer release 8 with support for AutoCAD 2005 and MicroStation v8, compressed DWF v6 -- plus the ability to snap points for measurements, new redline tools, and more. www.cadviewer.com Seminars & Conference The first conference for application developers interested in IntelliCAD is Sept 16-17 in Denver CO USA. [I'll be speaking at this event.] www.intellicad.org/WorldMeeting2004/ Product Lifecycle Management Road Map 2004 is Sept 22-23 at The Dearborn Inn, Dearborn MI USA. www.cpd-associates.com/conf International Symposium for Engineering IT (ISEIT) is in various locations at differing times. www.iseit.com BE Meetings are Bentley's professional training events, held in Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and Japan. www.bentley.com/en-US/Corporate/News/Quarter+3/Bentley+Announces+BE+Meetings.htm Magazine/eZine/Weblog Updates Gary Rea's "The World According to Gary" at garysworld.blogspot.com contains articles addressing current issues in the CAD industry, and perhaps, issues that no one else has considered, yet. Don LaCourse's www.3DCADTips.com Web site is an independent source of info for 3D CAD users and managers; it's sponsored by eDocHelp and CADalyst magazine. MicroStationTips.com is a new MicroStation tips [did you think it would be something else?] and tricks Web site designed for users. Plans for a monthly newsletter or weekly tip updates via e-mail are in the works. Not to be left out, Bentley Systems launches ETS Resource Center, its online learning Web site. "ETS" is short for "enterprise training subscription." ets.bentley.com WorthWhile Web http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040719.wstrauss0720/BNStory/Front
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http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMOKQL26WD_index_0.html
Letters to the Editor Re: Vendor Support Survey "Do you really think this is a fair test? Most companies (across many industries) avoid Hotmail and other non-validated email sources as there is no way of knowing who is really on the other end asking the question." - Chris Vass (via Hotmail) The editor replies, "Because you are writing from a Hotmail account, should I also ignore you? <g> We had a more dismal response rate (1 out of 10) when I used my email account as editor of upFront.eZine." Mr Vass responds: "Actually I considered this when I wrote it, which is why I used my Hotmail account. But I do believe this is a factor, unless the Hotmail user is registered in someway with the company. It could just as easily be their competition looking for information. Several companies will not allow download of information from a Web site unless they can validate an email address." - - - "There are two things that increasingly prevent us from providing the level of service and support which we want to offer. The first is users submitting emails without a heading in the subject line. Given the vast mass of spam which we receive and delete, emails without a descriptive subject line stand a much higher chance of being removed unintentionally. "The second is when we reply to the enquirer, but their spam filter prevents our reply from reaching them. We are finding that increasingly our support emails are ending up in trash baskets as a result of over enthusiastic spam filters. While this is more likely to happen in a large company than a small one, the problem is growing as individual CAD users start to employ spam filters. "It is extremely annoying to be accused
of failing to get back to such users, particularly as the drafting
of a competent and useful reply takes a considerable amount of our
time." The editor replies: "upFront.eZine also suffers from over-enthusiastic spam filters blocking delivery of our subscription-only e-newsletter. Similarly, some legitimate incoming emails are flagged as spam by our ISP."
"While there are some good reasons to
have a Hotmail account, our experience shows these users are less
professional than we would like. Time-wasting enquiries and Hotmail
accounts often go hand-in-hand. It is unsurprising therefore that
some companies technical support staff might discriminate against
them." - - - "I wish you would include an additional
2D CAD program in your inquiries. It is PowerCadd by Engineered
Software (www.engsw.com). It is Mac-only. One of the main reasons
I have stuck with this program for so long is for their customer
support. There is always someone there to promptly answer questions.
I think you would be surprised." Spin Doctor of the Moment "We're No. 1 because there really isn't
a No. 2, which is a good business plan if you think about it."
Notable Quotable "The political class has refined Voltaire:
'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my
right not to have to listen to you say it.'" |
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Return to www.upfrontezine.com. Entire contents copyright ©2004 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide. Article reprint fee $500. All trademarks belong to their respective holders. "upFront.eZine," "Talking About CAD," and "On your desktop every Tuesday morning" are trademarks of upFront.eZinePublishing, Ltd. Letters to the editor may be reproduced in an edited form for clarity and brevity. Opinions expressed in letters are not necessarily shared by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. |
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