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Issue #429 : : May 3, 2005 |
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C o n t e n t s UGS Targets Autodesk, Dassault
INGR, PTC Report Financially Q&A: Five Minutes with the
Editor Under the Radar and other
regular columns. |
Write the Editor. Donate to upFront.eZine with Paypal. Access nearly-daily CAD commentary at our blog: WorldCAD Access.
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Do not feel obliged to pay. upFront.eZine continues to be freely available to everyone; this e-newsletter is supported by annual subscriptions, one-time donations, and on-going advertisements. UGS Counterattacks Dassault, Autodesk Dassault earlier played up its special relationship with Microsoft, where there will be some sort of support for Dassault's open (but as yet undocumented) 3DXML file format by Microsoft -- most likely, the ability to view a representation of 3D CAD drawings in Office documents. And in recent weeks, Bentley Systems has been egging on Autodesk through its You [yes, you!] Deserve Better campaign. In the last two weeks, UGS has thrown its ax into the fray.
UGS vs Dassault UGS declared that its open (and documented) JT2Go-JT Open Edition <www.JT2Go.com> now embeds 3D CAD drawings in documents generated by Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Here's how: CAD drawings are saved as JT files, which are embedded in the documents (called "JT Documents"), and then viewed with the free JT2Go viewer. The viewer also does simple 3D measurements and cross-sectioning. As is common with viewers from other vendors, it's free to view, but not to publish. In addition, other vendors using JT can enable the capability in their implementations. In the war of statistics, here's how the claims stack up:
UGS vs Autodesk Perhaps capitalizing on the Autodesk CEO's admission that switching her customers to 3D will take another ten years, UGS says their new release of Solid Edge will "specifically benefit AutoDesk [sic] customers looking to move to 3D with Solid Edge." Although the press release emphasizes moving 2D AutoCAD users to 3D Solid Edge, UGS is targeting Inventor as well. Solid Edge Version 17 supports translation of AutoCAD and Inventor drawings through:
As I've written before, crossgrade promotions are entertaining to watch, but fail to convince users to switch CAD software in any great numbers. Intergraph and Parametric Technologies are two CAD vendors emerging from the brink. INGR shares are trading at around US$30, close to the all-time high -- back in 1988! Intergraph's 1Q revenues were US$136.5 million -- up 3.2%. I'd report on the conference call, but the Intergraph link was broken, so moving right along... Parametric Technology PTC's 2Q revenues were US$176.1 million -- up 7%. Here are snippets from the company's conference call last week with financial analysts: Q: After several years of curtailed growth, what's making the difference now? A: Two reasons: (1) tightly integrating and simplifying all software on one architecture making the total cost lower; and (2) global product development is an imperative among companies to greater profits.
Q: Your reaction to Dassault's announcement of highly integrated software by 2007? A: Vendors can say what they want, and I don't buy that. There's VPM, Enovia, SmartTeam. Those are three different products with three different databases on three different architectures. So maybe they have a plan to start over and create another new one in a few years, but I wouldn't give them credit for having a highly integrated solution. If you look at UGS and TeamCenter, we sometimes joke that there is no "team" in TeamCenter because there is no "center" in TeamCenter. In its broadest configuration, this system could have up to a dozen different databases and IT architectures. There's a lot of capability there, but I think people are concerned about the cost to deploy it, cost to get it integrated, the total cost of ownership over time, and so forth. Our solution compared to that looks lean and mean and clean, and on a pure single architecture. [Later in the conference call, PTC admits that users of their older PLM software are having to switch over to the new but different databases.]
Q: You had a promotion for Pro/E last quarter and have another this quarter with special pricing [that cut prices by 50%]. Will it be an on-going practice to heavily discount certain configurations of Pro/E at the entry level? A: To compete in the entry-level market, we are thinking more like a retail business. Time-limited, special-price bundles are exactly thinking like the small-customer mindset. I would expect to see more of that in the future.
Q: There's been a decline in large transactions in the design solutions [CAD] group. What was the difficulty? A: The nine large transaction were comparable to last quarter and last year. We had two very large transaction in the East a year ago, so the decline is relative to the very large ones. There were a smaller number, and smaller revenue, from MCAD-only deals. Most big deals are combined MCAD and WindChill.
Q: We're seeing a lot of growth coming out of you, Dassault, and Autodesk. Where is this growth coming from, if it isn't competitive [getting customer from competitors]. Where are these new seats coming from? A: I think most of the new seat opportunities are coming from companies that have been using 2D, and are now upgrading to real 3D CAD/CAM/CAE systems. Many of those 2D seats are AutoCAD. As they upgrade, we manage to poach a lot of them, because we are the only vendor who can provide a scalable growth path: a system that can be packaged with a low-end price point, but can scale all the way up to our Flex3C configuration, and it's part of a product development system. Some of those companies say, 'When I upgrade, I want to upgrade to something with legs. If I upgrade to SolidWorks, I can never get to Catia. If I am with UGS, I start with one product [Solid Edge], and wish later I was with another one [NX], with a difficult time switching.' Only Pro/E offers that level of scalability.
Q: Do customers see WindChill as part of a broader solution, or do companies still want a stand-alone collaborative design product? You don't have to say that the independent guys are dead. A: Our customers want a problem solved; they don't want to launch a system integration project. I definitely think this is making it difficult for vendors who only provide a tiny piece of a complete product development environment.
Q: If I was a small player, and I had architected my product using .Net, would that make it easier to integrate, or are there still headaches? A: The most fundamental issue of integration occurs at the level of the data model. The problem is solving two different databases, with conflicting overlapping data models: they have more or less the same data, but they both think they can own it and change it without consulting with the other guy -- it's the Gordian Knot of computer science problems. Customers can't solve that problem, so they see that we have that one single database, and they say that's the better alternative.
Q: How are you acquiring firms? And how will you integrate future acquisitions? A: We are looking at acquisitions that expand our footprint in global product development and our overall PLM footprint -- provided we can have a clean architecture when we are done. So, we might be a little pickier than some of our peers, because we look at integration at the service level, the sales level, the finance level, and so forth.
Q: We're hearing of weakness in Europe. Is the design environment changing in Europe? A: Overall we are up %5 in Europe [for the first two quarters].
Q: Could you comment on the linearity of the quarter. A: Linearity? Q: Yes, month by month during the quarter. A: It's been pretty comparable to how business has been in the past. I would say linearity has improved vis-a-vis prior years. It's marginally more predictable than in prior years. Revenue is split between:
Q: Can you provide an update to the product release schedule? A: WindChill 8 is delayed by six weeks to June 6. WildFire 3 is due late summer, early fall. PartsLink used to have a separate database, and will be relaunched with WindChill 8 with a common database. Some new modules accompany WindChill 8: AML/AVL [approved manufacturer/vendor list], ECAD [electronic CAD], and software source code management tools.
Q: How many customers are now on WindChill 7? A: Don't have that statistic.
Q: You seem to do less business in the retail channel than some of your peers. How much more business will your retail channel handle? A: 25-30% of our revenue as we move towards the billion-dollar number [revenues] in 2008. Our own direct sales force will focus on the largest accounts.
Dassault and Moldflow Dassault's 1Q revenues were e199.2 million -- up 13%. Translating the results into American currency, they earned approximately US$260 million (up 19% in U.S. dollars). Moldflow's full year revenues were US$15.9 million -- up 20%.
Q&A: Five Minutes with the Editor It's hard for me to believe that upFront.eZine is ten years old. To celebrate, I interviewed myself about my thinking behind the concept. - - - Q: When did upFront.eZine originate? A: It was first meant to be an intermediate update to its predecessor, CAD++ -- my monthly newsletter that succumbed to the high cost of paper, printing, and postage. During the time it overlapped with CAD++, upFront.eZine came out every few weeks -- when there was enough to fill an issue. I was hard for me to shut down CAD++, and I was wondered whether there would be sufficient CAD news for a weekly newsletter. My dad wondered how I could possible make money from a free newsletter. But there was enough news (even for daily e-newsletters, like TenLinks), and revenue did flow in, starting with $12 in the first year.
Q: Why the strange name? A: A lesson learned from CAD++ was that newsletters need generic names in order to adapt as the CAD world changed. upFront.eZine has no specific identity.
Q: From where did the name ordinate? A: I was looking about for a name, which is tough, because the name has to be one nobody's thought of before. Visitors to my office know about my floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books, magazines, a model railroad diorama, a shelf of CAD-imprinted coffee mugs (I drink tea, actually), and dozens of old software packages. I noticed the old Alias software, Upfront, and adopted its name, because I hoped the newsletter would be upfront about the CAD industry.
Q: And the strange punctuation with mixed case lettering? A: That's part marketing and part Internet craze. The mixed-case lettering is supposed to make the name stand out; the dot the center is held over from the dot.com mania. I should acknowledge the encouragement of many, but over the last ten years, the especially right words came at the right time from Vince Everts, Yoav Etiel, and Joel Orr. A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: - - - Coutts Design upgrades its PalmOS CAD software, ZiPCAD|Pro $US495), with support for Bluetooth connections to Leica's Disto Plus distance meter; freehand sketching; and improved rendering. www.zipcad.com Spicer releases its Imagenation file viewer software with the new ability of displaying raster documents up to 4GB in size, using less than 40MB of computer memory. The viewer adds support for SolidWorks 2005, JT, AutoCAD 2006, and PDF 7. Free eval from www.spicer.com Intergraph introduces G/Technology v9.2 for integrating geofacilities management. www.newgtechnology.com powerPARTS is 50 million CAD drawings of parts from 70 manufacturers now available for Inventor 9, SolidWorks 2005, Pro/Engineer Wildfire, Solid Edge 16, Mechanical Desktop 2005, and TurboCAD 10. www.web2cad.com PLP Digital Systems releases PlotWorks Convert that batch converts single and multi-sheet drawings to print-ready format. The software supports CALS, HP-GL, HP-GL/2, HP-RTL, DWF, PDF, TIFF, and VIC. www.plp.com Ingenuus Software announces Smart Expediter 5.1 with new features, pricing, and flexibility [but from the press release I have no idea what the software does]. Portland Backup forms the Portland Backup Remote Data Trust for storing your firm's design history safe from catastrophic events. www.portlandbackup.us Microsoft Office Importer allows MicroStation users to import huge spreadsheets in one paste. www.axiomint.com - - - And these news items were posted during the last week at our WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
Seminars & Conferences AVEVA Group holds its International Symposium for Engineering IT on Oct 11-12 in Frankfurt. http://www.aveva.com
WorthWhile Web Reader Shyamal Roy of Geomate has beautiful photos of India at www.shyamalroy.com . He adds, "As a longtime Nikon user I agree with your views on the lenses holding the 'body' hostage."
Letters to the Editor Re: 3D on the Net "When I began to research what technologies are available for NURBS modeling, I found the x3d consortium Web site with all its wonderful promises about support for NURBS, etc, etc. After speaking with a software developer, I found out that this was an well built and flexible format. And so I began my project with this standard in mind. "However, this morning I had an experience which gave me that sinking feeling: My boss, who is just as interested in 3D as me, came into my office brimming with excitement that Acrobat had now support for 3D. After a little research about this [U3D] format, it appears to me to be a poor cousin of x3d in terms of flexibility. "However, I feel will not stop it from becoming the dominant format. I'm afraid we have a VHS-video scenario on our hands; by this I mean that despite it not being the best standard available, U3D will push itself on user, because the x3d consortium have not been able to come up with a big brother that can face down the likes of Intel and Adobe, which have massive market penetration. "I am hopeful, but not holding my breath, that x3d will
get the recognition it deserves. The fact that I have 3 different
viewers loaded on my computer to view x3d content -- while I already
had Acrobat installed -- gives me pause for thought." The editor replies: "U3D is not supported by any CAD package except MicroStation."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Men spend more money on video games than they do on music."
Notable Quotable "Believing not much of anything at all has never been much
of a motivation to get out of bed early on a Sunday morning."
Copyright 2005 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide All
rights reserved worldwide. Article reprint fee $250. |
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