2 CAD Guys Talk about the Cost of CAD

Issue #1,102  |  Inside the Business of CAD | 28 June 2021

 

David Stein: I’ve been preoccupied with non-CAD work for too long and only recently checked in with your newsletter to catch up on things.

The more I read about big-name CAD producers, the more it seems they chase bigger spenders, rather than focus on customer needs, especially small and mid-sized customers, who can’t justify selling their homes, kids, and pets to buy super high-end hardware and insanely expensive products.

Catchy names, rehearsed speeches, coached hand gestures, and overblown claims during keynotes are boring. It’s become like CGI [computer generated imagery] in action movies: nobody jumps in their seats anymore, because they know it isn’t real. Keynotes are all aimed at the executives, not the engineers and designers.

I never rooted enough for the underdogs; many have come and gone. But I hope to see a new generation of CAD products priced lower than a new home roof. I’ll gladly try something that can model a house deck, or custom-furniture piece making, if it's inexpensive (or even free).

But right now I’d rather draw my 3D plans on paper than pay thousands of dollars. I don’t need to collaborate with a marketing team, or to print parts in outer space — just basic machine shop stuff, the people they seem to have forgotten about.

 

Ralph Grabowski: You are seeing this frantic behavior because some publicly-owned CAD vendors are getting financially desperate as they run out of revenue boosters in what is a mature market. We saw prices increasing steadily through a variety of tactics:

1. Some CAD vendors forced users off one-time permanent licenses and onto all-the-time subscription fees.

2. They skyrocketed subscription prices for big enterprise customers, who typically renegotiate licence fees every third year.

3. They increased the effective cost of networking licenses by changing them from floating to per-person.

4. In the last fiscal year, they received a one-time big bang by being allowed to report deferred subscription revenue differently, in a way that makes it look like they goosed revenues during the pandemic.

One editor, who has his pulse on the industry more than me, thinks the next step is consumption-based use. The more cloud-CPUs your drawing needs, the more you pay — possibly through tokens, which some CAD vendors have already implemented in a limited way (such as for renderings and generative modeling).

In a perverted way, the money grab make sense, as certain CAD vendors have painted themselves into a corner. After convincing themselves that the cloud was to be the Next Big Thing, they forgot that they are the ones footing the bill 24/7 to Amazon AWS. Now they are scrambling to figure out how to cover their sky-high server bills. The answer: squeeze the customer.

CAD vendors who are keeping their software on the desktop are smart. They don’t incur the AWS tax.

 

David Stein: Oddly enough, I left the world of CAD (add-on developer, actually) for IT infrastructure, and then cloud — mostly Azure and the Microsoft stack. It’s interesting to me that for all the touting of “consumption-based pricing” by Microsoft that they don’t follow their mantra completely. There still are upfront costs like Security Center. Azure Log Analytics features, such as Change Tracking, incur a node fee.

I think that both markets, CAD and cloud, desperately need more competition. It’s shaping up to be like the big three TV networks from the ’50s to the ’70s.

 

Ralph Grabowski: Big shifts promoted by CAD vendors today inevitably become minor components tomorrow. There was a time around 2000 when we were so bombarded with collaboration-as-the-future marketing that we began referring to it as “the C-word.”

The ceo of a CAD firm one said something along the lines of, “If you’re not giving me money I don’t want you as a customer.” He did not seem to understand that it goes both ways: if CAD vendors aren’t giving value for money, then customers don’t want them a suppliers (cf. the Revit letter).

 

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And in Other News

Open Design Alliance is looking for companies to work on a general purpose scan-to-BIM SDK [software development kit] that would do the following tasks:

1. Convert point cloud data to segmented meshes

2. Remove interference objects

3. Classify meshes into objects like walls, doors, and windows

4. Convert classified objects to BIM formats like IFC and RVT

Even though some CAD vendors have already implemented scan-to-BIM functions on their own, this collaborative effort is meant to provide it faster and more cheaply than doing it from scratch. Members will write the source code and determine the usage fee. More info about the initiative is at opendesign.com/scan-to-bim.

In other ODA news, the organization added sculpted solids to its Drawings SDK. This is where you create 3D solids from two or more surfaces. Pictures at opendesign.com/blog/2021/june/oda-extends-drawings-sdk-sculpted-solids.

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Epson is launching six new models this year of its SureColor T-Series inkjet printers in 24-, 36- and 44-inch sizes. First up is the T7770D (US$6,945) 44"-wide printer that holds two rolls of paper, a take-up reel, and an optional stacker. It prints monochrome CAD drawings at speeds of up to 1,400 square feet/hour.

The T7770D connects to computers through USB3 and WiFi. epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Large-Format/SureColor-T7770D-44-Inch-Large-Format-Dual-Roll-CAD-Technical-Printer/p/SCT7770DR

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Here are some of the posts that appeared recently on my WorldCAD Access blog:

• Siemens PLM Media Q&A

• Best Tweets: Facebook Ad-ifies Oculus

You can subscribe to the WorldCAD Access blog’s RSS feed through Feed Burner at feeds.feedburner.com/WorldcadAccess.

 

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Notable Quotable

“There’s a surprising amount of science in what we call ‘marketing’, and a surprising amount of marketing in what we call ‘science’.”
     - David Burge

 

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