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Issue #452 : : November 22, 2005 |
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C o n t e n t s Inventor Sales Blow Away SolidWorks Autodesk Conference Call UGS Conference Call Below
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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Inventor Sales Blow Away SolidWorks SolidWorks used to be able to say they had the #1 selling MCAD software. Then Inventor began selling more copies per year, so SolidWorks had to step back to being #1 in all-time sales. But during the last three months, Inventor has blown away SolidWorks by outselling it in total sales.. CAD Software Brand Inventor SolidWorks Notes Seats Last Quarter nearly 12,000 8,005 (excludes education sales) I know, I know. I'm going to hear from readers the oft-repeated accusation that over 50% are education sales, and so they shouldn't count. Or that Autodesk underprices its Inventor licenses to get them into more accounts. (Autodesk's MCAD division's revenues-divided-by-Inventor-seats plummeted from $2,408 in Q2 to $1,563 in Q3.) Or that there is more demand for SolidWorks operators than any other. Or that this is just a numbers game, what really counts is the quality of the product. Or the product specialty. Et cetera. Still, 511,300... - - - Meanwhile, we've got the Autodesk ceo calling DWF "an industry standard," and the UGS ceo calling JT "the world's most-widely-used 3D data format." What will Dassault come up with for 3DXML? Autodesk Conference Call Revenue grew 26% to $378 million over the same quarter a year ago. For Q4, Autodesk expects revenues to increase to $405 - $415 million, but slightly less for Q1: $400 - $410 million. For all of 2007, revenue growth is expected to 10% - 12%. This news caused the share price to fall by nearly $10 in one day, chopping nearly $2 billion from Autodesk's market value. LT continues to outsell AutoCAD, while revenues from Linux systems increased nearly 70%. Revenues at the media and entertainment group, however, were down due to "some of the forced attrition of the sales force." Autodesk's strategic goals are:
Highlights From the Conference Call (This was a tough one to listen to, the audio Webcast kept crashing.) CEO Carol Bartz is now calling DWF "an industry standard format." On 3D, she says: "In contrast to what most software companies are experiencing, Autodesk continues to see very robust new seat sales." "Our strategy is working: The mainstream [MCAD] market is the most exciting and fastest growing part of the market. The legacy solutions of our competitors are getting more specialized and most difficult and more expensive to deploy, learn, and use. Building on standard platforms and learning from others' mistakes, we are able to innovate much more quickly." Over 8,600 commercial seats of Revit were shipped [although it's not clear during which time period] -- roughly 1/6 as many as Inventor. Buzzsaw now has 125,000 users. Paraphrased Q&A Q: "Does the 2007 guidance include Alias? With the forced retirement of 2004, did 2004 have less revenue attached to it than 2002? [There was no AutoCAD 2003.]" A: "There is no Alias in our numbers at this point. 2004 has a smaller [customer] base than 2002."
Q: "How much of the installed base is now on subscription?" A: "It's in the 700-800 thousand range."
Q: "What phase are we at in 3D adoption. Last statement you made is that it's roughly a 10-year cycle to get everyone on 3D." A: "It's less than 10% of our base converted to 3D, which is good news. We're growing our 2D customers at 20%. It's a wonderful decade-long process to get everyone on 3D. We're far, far from even getting to the inflection point."
Q: "What is happening with the manufacturing sector in the mid-west, what with GM having problems?" A: "No we haven't."
Q: "Did hurricanes Rita and Katrina have an impact?" A: "There was no economic impact from Katrina on us. Obviously, if you have to rebuild things, and we are in the building business, and the government puts some decent money in there, we should see some business from that." UGS Conference Call CEO Tony Affuso says the core of UGS is innovation: products and process through global networks. "We're pleased to now see our competitors rushing in, and to follow our lead, and rally around our vision of Global Innovation Networks -- which we shared with our customers earlier this year. As they say, 'Imitation is the greatest form of flattery'." Cheering for JT A significant part of Mr Affuso's presentation included cheerleading for the company's proprietary but open JT format. UGS was the only PLM vendor featured at Microsoft's PDC conference for developers. "This agreement [between XAML and JT], along with our deepening relationship with Microsoft, highlights the continuing momentum our industry-leading JT format is enjoying in the marketplace." Later, he added "We continue deliver on our promise of open systems. JT .. . is now the world's most-widely-used 3D data format. Today, JT Open has over 100 members, and they are driving to make JT the industry standard for sharing 3D data. The fact that several of the world's leading manufacturers are directly involved in developing the standard makes it that much more powerful." CFO Doug Barnett reported that the company's debt has fallen to US$1.16 billion; the debt is a result from the buyout from EDS. "CAX" is used in place of CAD. And the company has 4,000 customers in China. Paraphrased Q&A Q: "You don't hear much about customers switching high-end CAD systems. Why would customers switch their high-end CAD?" A: "We have very productive capabilities, especially in knowledge management, capture, and replay. One of our aerospace customers used to use 200 people to develop a new concept, and by using NX they reduced that to 20 engineers... and they can do 20 more iterations than they could before. When you get that kind of productivity and that kind of gain, it's worth it to switch."
Q: "Can you give us a feel of how your Velocity business will impact your margins? [ie, how will the new lower-cost product reduce profits?]" A: "We expect to see some earnings growth through Velocity."
Q: "Is there a worry you might be cannibalizing some of your enterprise customers through this?" A: "We manage that all the time, just as our competitors manage their environments. We don't see a real problem. I think we were absolutely under-penetrated, under-served in the mid-market... And now and then there could be a cannibalization, on the whole we think it's really going to help our revenues."
Q: "Is there any reason why you need to remain private [-ly owned]?" A: "We're still working on the things we need to do before we do the IPO [initial private offering, going public on the stock market]. We're working on reporting systems, management structure, building our channel for Velocity. Our board of directors is happy with where we are, and we continue to evaluate the market, looking for that opportunity for an IPO, but we don't have any timing."
Q: "Can you give us a sense of the size of your channel [resellers]?" A: "We have about 250 partners out there. In our next quarterly report we give you more details."
Q: "What about NX4?" A: "NX4 is really the release we've designed for the transition of the I-DEAS base [customers], it's been nearly four years now we've been developing the NX product, putting key I-DEAS components in NX. We feel we'll get a good amount of the hold-outs who have been continuing to stay with I-DEAS to move over to NX."
Q: "What are your expectations for [market] share [in the small- and medium-size market], especially given that your competitors Dassault and PTC have addressed the SMB market as well." A: "We have a new paradigm. We have peak-end PLM and brought it to the mid-size market. We have an integrated offering, with CAD, CAE, and PDM. And it really is focused on the needs of that mid-market. While our competitors are out there, they are typically out there with a point [partial] solutions, and we're bringing an integrated solution."
Q: "Could you provide growth projections for CAD for the remainder of the year and 2006?" A: "We haven't provided one for the balance of the year or 2006, and we won't start today."
Q: "Could you speak to how the Velocity pipeline with help with your growth?" A: "The Velocity pipeline is just starting. Given the size of our pipeline, and given the size of our business of our traditional areas, I don't expect Velocity to impact us an awful lot in the near term, but in 2006."
A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting:
Aide CAD Systems releases a PDF-to-DXF converter (US$288). No word on whether it works with secured PDF files. www.aidecad.com Shades of Mission Impossible! AutoShred Lite is free software that automatically destroys files after the recipient views them with eDrawings from SolidWorks. www.pinionsoftware.com/MfgQuoteAutoShredLite Ilexsoft releases HighDesign 1.6.0 (US$350), their 2D CAD and illustration program for Mac OS X. www.ilexsoft.com DesignEst Pro generates costs based on Revit and ADT design objects and their attributes. www.winest.com Okino Computer Graphics ships its second generation of solids-based CATIA v4, CATIA v5, and ACIS SAT import converters. www.okino.com www.HatchPatterns.com is relaunched with two new hatch patterns for AutoCAD. RenderWorks 12 from Nemetschek integrates radiosity and ray tracing from LightWorks. www.lightworkdesign.com Schott Systeme shows a new freeform feature recognition, um, feature in its software, which it says is ideal for mold formers. www.schott-systeme.com/http://www.schott-systeme.com VariCAD 2005 1.15 now supports 3D STEP files. Download a trial version for Linux and Windows from www.varicad.com RDV Systems' Rapid Design Visualization creates Web-based, fully interactive visualization environments directly from 3D AutoCAD .dwg files. www.rdvsystems.com And COADE releases CADWorx Steel Professional 3D steel modeling software. www.coade.com - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
And at the Gizmos Grabowski <worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/ > Weblog:
Seminars & Conferences Autodesk University 2005 is Nov 28-Dec 1 in Orlando FL USA. (I'll be there on Nov 29-30.) www.autodesk.com/au Concrete Canada, Construct Canada, Home Builder & Renovator Expo, PM Expo, Design Trends Trade Show, and Ecobuild Canada are Nov 30-Dec 2 in Toronto ON Canada. www.concretecanadaexpo.com SolidWorks World 2006 is Jan 22-25 in Las Vegas NV USA. (I'll be there Jan 23-25.) www.solidworks.com/pages/swworld/index.html 19th Annual Worldwide ABAQUS Users' Conference is May 23-25 in Cambridge MA USA. www.abaqus.com/AUC2006
Magazine/eZine/Weblog Updates Patrick Emin writes to let me know that his CADxp Website is now available in English at www.cadxp.info
People/Companies on the Move Ping Fu, ceo of Geomagic, is named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by 'Inc.' magazine. Carol Bartz, ceo of Autodesk, is number 31 on 'Fortune' magazine's "50 Most Powerful [American] Women" list. UGS switches John Graham from senior vp of sales and services for the Americas to executive vp for global sales and services. [Is a senior vp lower down than an executive vp?] Market News Cimatron Q3 revenues were US$4.90 million, down from $5.28 million a year ago. Net loss was $0.6 million, worsening from $0.4 million last year.
Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006: A Comprehensive Tutorial"
"Doctor Walt’s KEYCREATOR 5 Introductory Guide"
"IntelliCAD: The Un-AutoCAD"
WorthWhile Web www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69601,00.html
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/11/sony_photo_sharing.html
http://www.euratlas.com/
Letters to the Editor Re: No Sea Change for CAD "I would agree with your conclusion (that it's not likely), however, the persistent reference to running everything through a browser as being 'live' or 'online' is very shortsighted. "There are many other models for client/server, server-centric, and thin-client processing. Many work quite well, but nothing is a cure for all ills. "Don't forget Citrix-style hosting either, something which Autodesk has played with, on and off, for years -- at times loving it, other times despising (even forbidding it in the license). Other products require special consideration, such as NASTRAN, FEMAP, and so forth. "'CAD' is a very broad term and doesn't distinguish between
2D and 3D. Despite whatever the vendors tout, a HUGE amount
of design work is still 2D. 2D processing is indeed feasible in
server-centric or thin-client models. The tech jury is still out,
but the marketing jury has its head buried in the sand."
"We certainly see a sea change coming, it just may not look exactly like that for other productivity applications focused on the mass market. A full CAD application running as a thin-client in a browser isn't on the landscape today, but our architecture does support it. New technologies like AJAX and the increasing availability of high bandwidth may well make it possible. "Specifically though, I wanted to comment on your two statements regarding Alibre: "Alibre actually never attempted server-based design fed over the Internet. Our application has always been natively peer-to-peer utilizing a rich client. The client installs and runs locally like any other application but is capable of communicating with other clients and servers. In our architecture, packets of information are sent between clients that are then executed locally. There has always been enough bandwidth for that, and we do the same thing today that we did when we started. "We did find that at this stage in the life of Alibre Design
Xpress we simply wanted to maximize usage of the product by eliminating
any possible hurdle to obtaining and using the product. I do think,
however, that as the installed base grows, there may still be opportunities
for advertising to play a role, especially as the large paid-search
ad vendors models evolve to better accommodate applications."
Re: Notable Quotable "Clearly
never had to wait for a bus in my hometown of Leeds."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should
they care about it?"
Notable Quotable "Who is more evil now? Sony or Microsoft? - wpiman on
slash.dot
Copyright 2005 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.00.
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