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Issue #475 : : May 23, 2006 |
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C o n t e n t s
UGS Conference Call
Adobe Acquires
TTF: Former CEO Responds
Below the Radar and other regular columns.
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Write the Editor. Donate to upFront.eZine through Paypal. Access nearly-daily CAD commentary at our blog: WorldCAD Access. |
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Can CAD software run in a Web browser? At last year's Autodesk University, the company's now-ceo Carl Bass thought not, because it's too "heavy" -- too much data. He thought there was a place for BOMs and markups, which don't transmit nearly as much information. If AutoCAD 2007 places a burden on 2GHz desktop computers, how could Web browsers cope? View22 of Ontario, Canada, thinks they have the makings of just such a product, now three years in the making. Their approach was to work the problem backwards: instead of positing themselves at the CAD end (seen by all other CAD vendors at the starting point), they began at the customer end -- the final resting point seen by "normal" CAD companies. In this case, the customer is either B2C business-to-consumers or B2B business-to-business entities. Think FloorPlan 3D running in a Web browser. Consumers dragging and dropping 3D symbols into floorplans. See HGTV's version of View22's software running at http://onlinedesigner.hgtv.com/visualizer/GettingStarted.do . Companies like General Electric and Playworld Systems have replaced hundreds of seats of AutoCAD with View22. The company's little known secret is DynaCADD. Or, as View22's Mark Zohar put it, DynaCADD's DNA runs through them. What this means is that these people have CAD experience from the past, and their product includes CAD concepts like object snaps. Here's the process: 1. Import a scanned floor plan. Alternatively, DXF files are imported and scaled automatically, and then View22 auto-generates a 3D model of the floorplan. Whether you're working from scratch or modifying a plan, you can drawn with pen-like Web tools -- draw lines, curves, set structural parameters (such as doors, windows, and ceiling height), edit text, and then have the 3D model generated automatically. And so CAD-like 3D drawings are available to those without a diploma in drafting: consumers, salespeople, installers and maintenance workers. Other than the ease-of-use, it appears to me that the rule-based system is the most important. Rules (1) determine how symbols interact with each other, and (2) implement regulatory requirements, such as distances of safety. Mark Zohar is vp of corporate and business development, and he asks me if their product could replace AutoCAD LT. I think not; Visio is perhaps the better analogy. In my opinion, it is not inconceivable that a company like Autodesk would want to buy View22 for its last-mile technology that gets designs out of the CAD domain and into the hands of consumers, whether B or C. He's also excited -- and confused -- by Google's purchase of SketchUp. He sees it pushing massive acceptance of 3D [doing what Dassault hasn't so far: 3D for everyone]. On the other hand, he can't see Joe Average building 3D models for fun or profit. And the View22 name? View is short for visualization, and 22 for 20/20 vision. Plus, it rolls off the tongue. Link: www.view22.com
UGS continues to report ever increasing revenues, boasting that 07Q1 was the 11th consecutive quarter of increases: up 8% to US$273.8 million. ($11 million was lost due to changes in exchange rates.) That's doesn't necessarily mean good news for employees, as CEO Tony Affuso promised financial analysts to increase offshore R&D [research & development] staff over the next three years from the current 700 in India and China, thus allowing UGS to cut its R&D expense. "Global innovation with digital manufacturing" was the code for outsourcing as Mr Affuso detailed a partnership to promote more CAD jobs in India. Other items of interest:
Paraphrased Q&A Q: PTC and Dassault are doing lots of buy-ups [acquisitions]. How does this change things? Is there a business process modeling market [as DS sees it]? Is there a technical publishing market [as PTC sees it]? Who is going to really pull away in growth? A: When you take PTC down to organic [revenues exclusive of acquisitions], I think we are ahead of them. The issue is integrating everything. If you look at Dassault, they've got a real dog's breakfast; they've got everything -- different software, different data structures, different user interfaces, different databases -- and I don't know how they're ever really going to get that together. What are their customers going to do on these five different platforms that they have. It will take them five, eight years to get it together. Look at us with our integration of MetaPhase and TeamCenter; we've been working on that for five years. We've declared our vision, we're working on our vision. We're delivering on that with every release. And with our next release, which will be out in the customer's hands at the end of the year ( will be called TeamCenter 2007), we've really got the job done. We've got common user interfaces, common access, common file systems, single signon, we have application integration. We've got it done, we're there. Dassault is trying to buy some pieces and put them together. And [PTC] Windchill is doing the same thing: they talk about a common data structure, but when you look at the acquisitions they've made, they're still working on integrating it. So if the customer is looking for a single-user interface collaborative environment, we are delivering that without question.
Q: Remind us of the schedule for major software releases. Are you on track? A: We are.
Q: Are there pieces you still need to acquire to round out either the CAD side or the PLM side? A: We're looking at pieces right now, smaller things, pieces that flesh out what we call our "PLM Swoosh." As customers move their data through the lifecycle, we're looking at pushing more users into the experience with us. Link: www.ugs.com Adobe
Acquires TTF: by Francis Allias It seems that Adobe made a very good choice acquiring TTF when I see all these reactions [in upFront.eZine]. It is clear that Adobe found in TTF three important items. 1. Its translation technology librairies (known as TTF Foundation) is currently sold to many actors in the CAD (UGS, Think 3, Missler), CAM (Tebis, Openmind, DP technology, ...), CAE (Pointwise, Ansys, CD Adapco, Flomerics, ...), and MVP (Actify, RH, ...) markets. 2. It's accurate, real geometry compression technology with the PRC format, which is more accurate, smaller, and easier to produce with no CAD licence. 3. Its DMU solution Project Reviewer is a best seller in Japan, Korea, Italy. TTF stopped selling translators as products in 2001, and focused on pure indirect sales to editors since. We have never considered Elysium, Theorem Solutions, Proficiency, CadCam-e -- to name only the well-known and best-in-class companies -- as competitors, but as potential users of our TTF Foundations. It is obvious that now these companies could take advantage by working closely with Adobe and use Adobe's universal PDF platform to deliver their products. As an open standard, PDF has now the best support for their tools and will make their customers happy for both perennity and access to data. It is now part of my job to welcome and help them in that direction. Just to let you know that TTF made 98% of its revenues outside of France and 85% outside of Europe.
[Francis Allias is the former ceo of TTF SA. Currently, he is ceo of The P51 Group and a consultant to Adobe.]
A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: SolidWorks announces PDMWorks Enterprise software for large companies sharing engineering documents with version control. It lets hundreds of users to work on projects simultaneously [although I don't know if that's a good thing: too many cooks spoil the broth and all that]. You can listen to a podcast of SolidWorks' director of product management talk about PDMWorks Enterprise at [mp3 file] blogs.solidworks.com/mediapodcasts/files/pdmworks_podcast_final_05.16.06.mp3 At the other end of the spectrum... Bentley Systems unveils ProjectWise StartPoint entry-level collaboration software running on Microsoft's SharePoint server. It gives you access to SharePoint-style collaboration from within MicroStation, PowerDraft, and AutoCAD. [In a related note, Bentley is calling itself Autodesk's largest third-party developer.] www.bentley.com/ProjectWiseStartPoint Informative Graphics says its line of Brava content visualization and Net-It content publishing software will directly support Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS). www.infograph.com Boothroyd Dewhurst announces DFMA 2006 -- Design for Manufacture and Assembly software that finds major cost drivers associated with part manufacture and finishing. www.dfma.com MagicTracer 1.5.005 raster-vector conversions software is updated with new features and bug fixes. www.magictracer.com/download - - - 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 2007 Internatioanl LEAN & Six Sigma Conference is Feb 28 - Mar 1, 2007 in Orlando FL. www.iso9000conference.com People/Companies on the Move Actify names David Opsahl as ceo and Chris Jones as president, as reported by CAD Insider at cadinsider.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/05/actify_changes_.html TechniGraphics purchases the PLM business from Axiom Systems.
Market News Privately-held Right Hemisphere ends its fiscal year with 90% growth in bookings.
Letters to the Editor Re: AutoCAD 2007 "Just wondering if you had heard anything about companies defecting from the AutoCAD camp because of the high upgrade cost to 2007 ADT. We are a medium firm with 12 stations and are now facing a $25,000 upgrade fee, which is way too much for our firm. We are seriously considering a move to progeCAD and are now in the testing phase. We tried BricsCAD but dropped it because of the 3D approach. AutoCAD is an electronic pencil for us. "Well, I was just wondering if you had heard any grumblings
from the users about the upgrade price of AutoCAD." The editor replies: "No."
Re: Adobe Acquires TTF "I'm not sure if it was the editor or actually the Adobe guys < www.mcadonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=1 > who say: "Quote: 'While Adobe wants the translation capability (which it already licensed for the new Acrobat 3D), the biggest interest was in TTF's own lightweight, but accurate, format from which Adobe said users could manufacture from. PDF uses U3D format which is tessellated and pretty fat. The new format will allow great compression but with greatly increased accuracy for spline-based surfaces.' "So 'I told ya so' for those that disagreed with me :) but took the liberty to plug their software solutions like crazy! I've always preferred a more simple plug like, 'We make good stuff'. "With 3D models, compression DOES matter -- especially if
it the difference of a 'many' megs in a PDF file size that is to
be downloaded."
Notable Quotable "Ask me in 10 years and I'll tell you why what happened
was inevitable."
Copyright 2006 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.00.
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