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Issue #527 : : July 17, 2007 |
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In this issue: The 4% Dis-solution: PTC Faulters
Out of the Inbox, plus the other regular colum ns . |
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The
4% Dis-solution: The stock market is a fickle mistress. PTC announces that expected revenues will be 4% lower than previously guestimated, and traders drop the share price by 20%. To put things in perspective, the $16 share price is respectable compared to the $5 price back in late 2002. A slight dip this quarter, a less rosy outlook for next quarter, and suddenly the goal of $1-billion-a-year is a little less in focus. With half-a-billion dollars worth of market value wiped out in a few moments, the next thought is, "Who might be interested in acquiring PTC at this bargain price?" Autodesk would want PTC only for its customer list, not its software. Dassault might want Pro/E for its ability to design automatic transmissions. Siemens has enough on its plate digesting UGS. Bentley Systems is absent from the MCAD market and could get its long-delayed IPO through a reverse takeover of PTC. But editor Martyn Day tells me that Bentley is no longer interested in either.
Owen Wengerd reveals that Autodesk has found a new tactic in its battle against the Open Design Alliance: it is asking that the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancel ODA's registration of "OpenDWG." The ODA first filed to register OpenDWG in 1998, and then received registration in 2001. Autodesk waited six years to contest it. DWG is neither a trademark nor a registered trademark of Autodesk's (whereas DXF is a trademark). With point #7 at usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=924623 , Autodesk notes that its claim to DWG is based merely on DWG's close association with the CAD company. Anyone can claim a trademark for any distinctive pattern of letters, just as I do for upFront.eZine. The difference with a 'registered' trademark is that it is registered with the government after a waiting period that allows others to intervene. I am not sure, but I think that file extensions cannot be trademarked. DWG is the name of a file extension; DXF is the name of a file format and technology, short for "drawing interchange format." The DWG file extension is not unique, having been used by other software, such as BravoDRAFT, Drafix, and Generic CADD. If DWG could be registered, Autodesk would have done it already. Perhaps DWG is too generic to be registered; Microsoft has the same problem with "Windows," having lost a court battle over the matter. Despite the lack of protection available to DWG, I could see Autodesk winning this one. However, all ODA need do is reword OpenDWG as "Open API for DWG" or something similar, and then they are in the clear. Other products, such as DWGEditor from SolidWorks, may also need renaming. It's not wrong for others to use DWG; it matters only in how the name is used in other product names to avoid further harassment. Or not. Perhaps an on-going series of money-draining skirmishes is all that Autodesk plans against the ODA and its near partner, the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium. www.adskvoda.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&EntryID=46 Moeller Electric launches M@x for designing electrical panels of up to 4,000 Amps, co-developed with IGE+XAO. The software features real-time updates. www.moeller-fr.com Cadalog is encouraging you to use the SU Podium rendering plug-in for SketchUp. Do an exterior design, submit it by July 30 to www.suplugins.com/contest , and the three best entries win 3Dconnexion navigation devices. It'll cost you nothing but your time, for you can use the free version of SketchUp and the free eval version of Podium. COADE updates CADWorx Plant Design Suite 2008, the AutoCAD-based plant design software. Linked P&IDs can now be placed directly into models; isometric drafting is updated with the latest release of ISOGEN. www.coade.com Elmo Solutions announces Agni Link bi-directional data integration link between SolidWorks, Inventor, or AutoCAD and Microsoft's Dynamics/NAV. elmosolutions.com Bentley Systems offers a free 30-day eval of its AutoPLANT XM, which runs on AutoCAD 2004-2007. Registration required, and a salesman will contact you. www.bentley.com/en-US/Promo/AutoPLANT/AutoPLANT+XM+Free+Evaluation.htm PTC is offering 40% off their Interactive Surface Design add-on when you buy Pro/ENGINEER Foundation XE by September 30. Register at www.ptc.com/go/specialoffers This month's issue of Engineering.com lists three open source CAD systems:
DraftView views, prints, and generates DXF files from CADDS 4X and 5 files. www.draftware.com/dvcaddshome.htm AfterCAD applies its plugin-free CAD technology to mapping. AfterCAD Maps displays rendered 3D CAD models at pushpin locations on Google Maps. For a demo of Yankee Stadium visit maps.aftercad.com with FireFox or IE. - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
People/Companies on the Move ParallelGraphics renames its 'Virtual Manual' products with the new 'Cortona 3D' brand name for generating and viewing VRML files. www.cortona3d.com Construction Industry Solutions (COIINS) buys up Shaker Computer and Management Services. Back in 1990, COINS had purchased the source code from Shaker upon which to develop their product for the UK market. www.coins-global.com Actify expands into Russia by appointing SoftLine as its reseller there. www.softline.ru Delcam appoints Patrick Marquant to run its new Professional Services Group in France. www.delcam.com iSEEK delivers CADSEEK Polaris for more extensive shape searches, including next assembly, metadata, a billboard navigatorm and a Web crawler. www.iseekcorp.com Avolve's ProjectDox is for automated permit application and tracking at municipalities (takes the paper out of the construction plan review process). www.avolvesoftware.com
Brand New CAD Books/eBooks 'Autodesk Inventor 2008 for Designers'
"Tailoring AutoCAD 2008"
WorthWhile Web http://www.slate.com/id/2133754/
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/12/1837251
Letters to the Editor Re: Autodesk Comes to Visit: Inventor 2008 "You can only delete Inventor annotations, views, and layouts in AutoCAD -- you cannot edit them. You can explode them to AutoCAD geometry, and this will count as a delete when the file is opened back into Inventor. You can, however, edit layers, and the Inventor objects will react to the layer changes, such as changing color or turning them off. "You can (as you state) add AutoCAD geometry of any kind
and it will show up in Inventor, but you can only delete the AutoCAD
geometry when in Inventor. The one exception to this is AutoCAD
blocks. You CAN move, scale, and edit attributes on AutoCAD blocks
in Inventor. You can also see the AutoCAD block definitions in the
Inventor browser, and insert new blocks onto your Inventor sheet."
"What does it say about a product that Autodesk has worked so hard to destroy, and yet years after they stop its development they are still putting parts of it [Mechanical Desktop] into Inventor. They still have a long way to go before Inventor can equal MDT though. "They would have been better off to have just given MDT
a second interface, called it 'Inventor', and let the user chose
which one they used, and continued development. Then they wouldn't
have to include any features into Inventor whilst awaiting we MDT
users to be forced away from a very useful and productive product." The editor replies: "The problem was that MDT is built on AutoCAD, which is getting pretty old. Autodesk still sells Mechanical and ADT, so it's a surprise that they don't sell MDT. Maybe it was so popular that it made it hard for Autodesk to sell Inventor." Mr Waddington responds: "I can and always have appreciated this issues of 'old code,' but what I have never been willing to accept is that the introduction of new code means you throw away functionality people use -- whilst at the same time asking those people to 'update' to what the marketing people see as the next way forward. "Had Inventor been able to do what MDT could do, we all would possibly have changed. Software interfaces are personal things and are only the front face of the underlying code within which is contained the functionality. Software developers have never been able to convince me that the link between these two parts of software are set in concrete. "When Autodesk released Inventor they talked lots about interface and user-friendliness and going forward whilst at the same time side-stepping we MDT users comments about not being able to do in Inventor what we could do in MDT. Now I look at AutoCAD and what do I see two interface selections [via workspaces]. "Enough said. Have a great weekend, Ralph. Thanks for running your ezine and blogs. I always look forward to reading them, even if I don't always agree with all the comments; but that's engineering, isn't it? how dull would it be if we all agreed all of the time, tho' maybe it would be more peaceful." - - - Re: McNeel Press Event "Nice article on Rhino. If only more mainstream CAD companies
would take a similar approach to spending more on the customer who
already bought their product, instead of spending the majority of
their budget getting new customers, I think the end result would
be customers who are ultimately happier."
Notable Quotable
""Ottawa lost control of cost-cutting
contract: Burned through 7 years worth of money in 9 months, an
internal audit has found."
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