Life is good for Autodesk. This year the 38-year-old software firm will finally pulled out of its US$2-2.5-billion-a-year doldrums and is guiding analysts to expect $3.25 billion this year, up a remarkable 30% over previous years. Its share price is at an all-time high, and as I write it is over $210. (See figure 1.) Its software collection boasts 140 products as it branches into non-traditional areas, such as 3D printing software for medical implants (Within Medical). Firing on all cylinders, it is.
 Figure 1: Stock price since ADSK went public
Then the company shook up its most loyal customers by announcing in August that time limits would be imposed for authorizing older software. The roll-out of the new policy proved confusing, as the company said the limitation applied to "software older than three releases [2016]" but other times "versions 2011 and later can be activated until March 2021." The accompanying Web pages offered extensive FAQs that, in their extensiveness, did not lessen the confusion.
It turns out that the restriction is less ominous than initially portrayed. It kicks in, for instance, only when you want to reinstall old software on a new computer. Still, it is one more brick in the wall Autodesk is building against perpetual licenses.
And then there is the problem of its trio of primary software -- Inventor, Revit, and AutoCAD -- all aging programs that sell well but are in need of replacements that are more than just a clutter of Web-based apps, or desktop programs acting like they are cloud-based.
Also dogging Autodesk is its failure to become a CAD vendor of record for the biggest CAD customers in the world. Aircraft and automobile design and manufacturing continue to be dominated by Dassault Systemes and Siemens, while Autodesk can only dream on Twitter of landing a Boeing (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Autodesk borrowing a marketing image from Boeing
The one industry that Autodesk truly does dominate is a failing one: computer games and special effects in movies. Games are 3x bigger than movies, and movies are going nearly 100% digital, yet the Media & Entertainment division represents just 7% of Autodesk's revenues. Here's why: an SFX [special effects] firm bids a fixed-price contract to win a big movie, like Gravity, and then goes out of business from cost overruns once the contract is ended. These firms may be Canadian and typically use Autodesk software.
Some years ago, Autodesk stopped reporting seat counts, and more recently stopped issuing press releases, except where legally required. Those curious about the company instead need to visit some of its 49 blogs.
Inventor at 19
Inventor chugs along, selling 40,000 copies a year, about half that of Solidworks. Like Solidworks, Inventor is in a no-man's land between being beloved by its user base but beset by an owner who'd rather users switch to a modern MCAD program like Fusion. Nevertheless, a few years ago Autodesk pledged to keep updating Inventor for another five to ten years.
More recently, Autodesk released an Inventor road map hinting at future releases. It is not unusual for users to load assemblies of 400,000 parts, and so Autodesk is working on making it faster to load one-million-part assemblies. Autodesk wants to make it possible for Inventor to work with Fusion file without translation, but Revit files with translation. A single model file can now be displayed over three screens, each with a different view -- such as the assembly, 2D, and a part -- each in a window (see figure 3). A dark theme is expected for Inventor 2021 or later.
Figure 3: Inventor 2020 displaying three aspects of a model across three screens
Nevertheless, at last fall's Autodesk University, Inventor was little talked about at the keynote, mirroring the treatment Solidworks receives from Dassault executives at Solidworks World, now 3dExperience World.
The surprise announcement at last fall's AU was that browser-based Fusion 360 will work with ANSYS Mechanical FEA desktop software for structural analysis, despite Autodesk having spent lots on acquiring its own stable of analyses software. ANSYS is pretty much the go-to firm these days for analysis. Finally, Fusion 360 connects to Delcam's desktop PowerMill machining software -- six years after Autodesk acquired Delcam. It seems to me that Autodesk is shoring up Fusion now that PTC owns arch-competitor Onshape.
Autodesk had made it especially difficult for customers to access its version of generative design, and so at AU it announced that users could get access for free -- but only until December 31. 2019.
Generative design (a.k.a. material optimization) is still the in-thing, as no newer MCAD technology has come along to supplant it, marketing-wise. Roopinder Tara points out that generative design flops in criteria beyond its core task of material optimization. Its designs tend to fail with buckling loads and generally cannot be manufactured with traditional CNC machines, he writes.
Daniel Davis, in a four-thousand-word think piece, explains that generative design fails end-users because it outputs too many variations and that we humans cannot comprehend them. (See figure 4.) It's like having software that generates 15 responses to an email, and then it's up to you to choose the one best one. In any case, he writes, the three-step process of generative design violates the engineer's work flow, which tends to alternate between macro and micro design adjustments.
Figure 4: Choosing the one best chair design
Revit at 20
Revit this year will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its launch as a venture-funded company, backed by some of the same people who funded Solidworks and later Onshape. After being acquired by Autodesk, it became software essential to architects -- primarily in USA and Britain -- that is increasingly being held together by glue and gum.
The idea behind parametrically modeled buildings with integrated information (BIM) is exciting. "Look! If I specify a new ceiling height, every floor in the entire skyscraper updates automatically." That was revolutionary.
BIM began to lose its luster as the amount of detail and data stored in a single model of an entire building began to overwhelm the hardware. In particular, it is not well suited to collaborative design among remote offices. The glue and gum come in the form of LODs (varying levels of detail) and third-party enhancements that optimize the shuttling of monster models between multiple offices.
Autodesk had promised a modern Web-based replacement code-named "Quantum," but it appears to me to have been reduced in scope. No surprise, as Revit was designed to be irreplaceable through an incomplete API [application programming interface] that operates only inside the program, along with undocumented file formats.
Outsiders are opening them up. Competitors banded together under the auspices of the Open Design Alliance to document the APIs and RVT/RFA [Revit and Revit family] file formats. Already competitors can read and display Revit models, while creating and writing models is promised for later this year. No one expects a Revit clone to materialize, but third parties are already peeling off functions that Revit does poorly, such as drawing documentation.
For its part, Autodesk props up Revit with 31 Web-based BIM 360 apps that manage projects, costs, and so on. I consider BIM 360 a stopgap measure.
One reason I mention Revit is because last year Autodesk concentrated all its acquisitions (Assemble, BuildingConnected and PlanGrid) on construction, a market that is many times bigger than design. Being a much larger market means Autodesk faces much larger competitors, most of whom are long-established. The near-billion it spent on acquisitions do not guarantee it a win.
AutoCAD at 38
The CAD program whose name is synonymous with our industry is one of the oldest computer programs still in popular use today. AutoCAD is a survivor, fending off attacks for some 25 years from more than 30 AutoCAD workalike programs, some of them free.
It is popular with users, but not executives. Despite costing CAD$2,100 (plus tax) every year, the company has pulled back on the development of AutoCAD. The annual feature list is barely a dozen features and primarily enhances existing functions. Autodesk also faces the problem that significant enchantments to AutoCAD step on the toes of its more expensive vertical software.
Before subscriptions, software companies had to show users that the upgrade was worthwhile. Now in the rental economy, software companies need not lift a finger too high, as they have already pocketed the cash. And so AutoCAD users receive enhancements like another yet palette for inserting blocks and improvements to comparing two similar looking drawings.
Mildly embarrassing for Autodesk is that its most popular program among customers is one of its weakest, AutoCAD LT. It is a stripped down version that does neither 3D nor programming. Instead, its popularity stems from doing what most drafters do: 2D drawing, 2D editing, and 2D printing.
Like Inventor and Revit, desktop-bound AutoCAD is a problem for Autodesk executives, who want to be serving up server-based software. A former CEO stated all of Autodesk's software would be available only through the cloud by 2018. It didn't happen, isn't seen (by me) to ever happen, and he is no longer with the firm.
There is a cloud version of AutoCAD, but since 2010 it has undergone three technology transitions and three name changes. The most recent one lacks a surprising number of functions and DWG compatibility as compared with direct competitors, such as Graebert Kudo.
What Ralph Grabowski Thinks
Depending on what you count as a CAD software firm, Autodesk is either in third or fifth place. It faces hard competition in all four of its sectors -- mechanical, architectural, general CAD, and entertainment. It suffered years of losses during the long switch over from permanent to subscription licensing.
Its current CEO has surmounted most of these challenges. One remains for Autodesk. It is having a hard time nullifying its desktop software in favor of Web-based apps. But then this problem bedevils all CAD software companies who try to solve it, and is, in my opinion, an unsolvable problem.
[This article first appeared in Design Engineering magazine, and is reprinted with permission.]
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