WorldCAD Access

progeCAD: Upgrade Us Free

Perhaps I should be placing all these news items on price cuts in the "CAD: Financials" category.

Latest is progeCAD and its international distributors (including icadsales.com of USA, CADDIT.net of Australia, and progeCAD Deutschland) are offering a buy-me-now-get-the-upgrade-free. Problem is, the offer from icadsales isn't clear to me:

... iCADsales.com is offering upgrades from progeCAD 2009 Professional to the new [2010] release for its customers at 2009 Pro pricing, and an additional 10% discount.

progeCAD 2010 Professional will offer:

• Read-write DWG 2010 files
• Improved Adobe PDF printing
• PDF layers
• 10x faster save time
• Create 2D profiles from solid models
• Windows 7-compatible

And if a free upgrade isn't good enuf, then just get the free version. progeCAD Smart 2009 is for non-business use only (Scout's honor!), and is due to be available "soon."

AU09: 5000+ Signed Up (so far)

The organization running Autodesk University reports that it has "over 5,000 confirmed registrations so far" of which 70% are self-identified AEC users. (By comparison, fifty weeks ago, Between the Lines reported that "currently the number is just North of 8,900 planning to attend Autodesk University 2008 in just under 6 days.")

Instead of paying $2,395 + airfare + hotel to attend in-person, Autodesk software enthusiasts might prefer the $99 pricetag for a full-access pass to AU Virtual. Not sure if the 5,000-number includes virtual attendees, but from the wording of the email blast, I'm thinking not.

I'll be at AU09 between Sunday night (arriving very late) and Wednesday afternoon.

Source.

IronCAD: Hey, Notice Us

IronCAD is rebranding the new v2009 release of its software as "IronCAD Next Generation XG." Actually, I like it when software gets a snazzy name; I've told the ITC people they should've rebadged IntelliCAD 7 as IntelliCAD/ng or something like that.

After noting that IronCAD was the "first application to bring the power of feature-history and direct editing within a single part," the press release announces that XG goes one better by combining:

...Innovative design environment with the more conventional history-based structured design environment, allowing users to choose at an individual part level, which process is most appropriate for the particular part they are designing. 

On the 2D side, XG integrates CAXA's 2D design and detailing tool within IronCAD. For a limited time, they are throwing in a free copy of a standalone CAXA Draft license. (CAXA is the China-based part-owner of IronCAD.)

You can try out the new release from www.ironcad.com/downloads/trialdownload (after registration).

Berlin Celebrates

I have relatives who lived in West Berlin throughout the time it was walled-in and continue living there today. (By sad coincidence, the communists began erecting the "anti-fascist" wall on my grandfather's birthday. He lived near the famed Tempelhof airport and its air-bridge memorial.) Following the Berlin airlift, the German government built huge square warehouses throughout the walled city with sufficient provisions to feed and maintain the population for an entire year. 

I and my family visited our aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents in West Berlin every few years, five times flying in from West Germany on Pan American airlines, the only airline the communists would allow. In those days, the West German government encouraged its citizens to stay in the island city through tax incentives.

The sixth time we took the train, seeing the armed guards on the platforms of every East German train station, none of which the train was allowed to stop at. My relatives lived near The Wall in southern West Berlin, and so it was a short walk to climb up some stairs and peer across the armed no-man's land.

On the most memorial trip, my uncle arranged the paperwork for us to visit East Berlin to see his uncle, who I recall had just five more years to wait for his car. I never did understand the desire of Western fellow-travelers for wanting to intrude the grayness of communism into our vibrant democratic-capitalistic society.

This afternoon, my dad emailed me:

Got a phone call from [aunt] Ditta, they half-emptied one bottle of "Sect" already, Berlin is celebrating.

It's Come to This: ITC Sues Longest-standing Member

I am saddened to report that the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium last week filed a complaint against CADopia alleging breach of contract and trademark infringement, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices.

CADopia didn't pay ITC membership dues of $47,248.76 in 2008 and 2009, and so should have halted using IntelliCAD trademarks, and recalled all ITC-branded products from distributors. 

CADopia did not make the payment and failed to respond to warning letters. The software firm's Website, however, continues to sell its products and use the IntelliCAD trademark.

Does CADopia even exist anymore? The most recent press release is from November, 2006. The "new" CADopia v8 being promoted on the site is based on IntelliCAD v6.4, released in August 2007.

I don't expect the ITC to win any damages from this law suit, not even attorneys' fees.

History of CADopia

This appears to be the sad ending for the IntelliCAD pioneer. Surya Sarda was one of the programmers on the original "IntelliCADD" product, and the very first to launch a CAD program based on the newly-liberated-from-Visio IntelliCAD source code in 1999.

He was an ITC board member between 2001 and 2007, the ITC president from 2001 to 2004, and ITC's development manager between 2002 and 2004.

[Disclosure: I had a commercial relationship with Mr Sarda, in customizing some of my IntelliCAD ebooks for CADopia.]

Alibre: Force Us to Be 10x Cheaper

Alibre promises to license you its software for 10x cheaper than the price quoted by a comparable competitor. (The announcement will be made tomorrow.)

For example, a quote for SolidWorks Standard at www.solidworks.com runs at $3995 for one license and $1295/year for a maintenance subscription for a total of $5290.

A user can bring this quote to Alibre and get Alibre Design Standard and one year of maintenance for $529, 10% of the competing quote.

Lessee,  Inventor LT is now running at $595...

We are seeing lots of discounts among CAD vendors as they attempt to maintain new sales volumes in these recessionary times. The whole point, of course, is to sell the razor cheaply and make future recurring income from the blades (aka annual maintenance fees).

The Tactic is Not New

CAD and other software vendors have offered competitive crossgrades since the 1990s. Indeed, back then I found it cheaper to buy a new license of Microsoft Publisher for $100, and then fax the manual's cover page to Adobe to purchase the PageMaker crossgrade for $200 -- than to pay the PageMaker list price of around $1,000.

And we in the CAD media keep hearing complaints from CAD vendors how their competitors seed customer sites with greatly-discounted or even free software. Last decade, IMSI even did the stunt publicly, giving away one million copies of TurboCAD -- free! -- as part of its Corporate Seeding Program.

Can CAD Software Become Cheaper than Free?

We are seeing a nascent trend in paying people to use software, though not yet in the CAD world. It works like this: you use free software that generates ads seen by others, of which you get a kick-back from the software maker. 

Source.

WorldCAD Access on Twitter

I still don't see the point to Twitter, other than twittering away valuable time reading things I really don't care about to know, like "three words after sex," apparently the most popular item among the bored twits of today.

But people have been asking for WorldCAD Access postings to appear in a Twitter stream. As of today, you can follow this blog's tweets of new postings at @ralphg.

(I could tweet other items now that I have a 64GB iPod Touch, such as which mug I've chosen to drink tea from today or when I am stepping into my car. Heh, I like the way a certain CAD editor unknowingly tweeted each time he killed someone... in a computer game linked to his Twitter acct. Sheesh.)

Autodesk: No Flying Cars in Our Future

Autodesk software computer-generates flying cars and carbon-spewing flying game monsters, but the company itself plans to spend more time grounded:

[Autodesk] wants to reduce [carbon] emissions by 85 percent and the accounting will include "an unusually high level of indirect emissions," Stewart said.

Autodesk, for instance, will include carbon emissions generated by customers flying to its conferences, not just the carbon consumed by its own executives to get to the same event.

Could the upcoming Autodesk University be the last one for you to get face-to-face time with fellow aficionados from all over the globe? The 85% reduction "for us and for you" makes it sound like Emma Stewart (senior program lead of the Autodesk Sustainability Initiative) wants her company to go the way of Bentley's virtual user conferences -- at least until someone denounces the WebExs as harmful to Mother Earth, naturally. 

By including the reduction of emissions of others, small-time-carbon-emitter Autodesk makes its own overall reduction numbers look better. For Autodesk customers also engaged in pacifying global warming devotees, the "for us and for you" plan has the benefit of double-counting reductions in emissions.

Source.

Tip: Block Collection

Looking for a basic set of drawing symbols (blocks, cells, parts)? CAD Corner Canada has a nice selection available free from http://www.cadcorner.ca/archblocks.php

Nothing fancy, no dynamic blocks, but these basic blocks will probably do well for architectural and office drawings. Each collection is in a single AutoCAD 2005 DWG file, ranging from Awning Windows EV.dwg and Wall Shelves.dwg. Also includes vehicles, some electrical and piping, and foundation details. 

(Two other pages of mechanical and miscellaneous details don't seem to be working.)

Ugh 3: Nemetschek Q3: Down 11%

Germany CAD software holding company Nemetschek reports Q3 revenues of e31.7 million (about US$48 million), down by 22% from a year ago. 

Like many other CAD firms, the company is finding that maintenance revenues are holding up (up 5%), but software sales are dragging down the results (down 22%), as are revenues from services and hardware (down 24%).

Net income was e1.8million, down 24%. The company has 326.7 e26.7 million cash in the bank.

Nemetschek is a holding company for brands such as Graphisoft, Vectorworks, and allplan.

Source [pdf].

Lovable Analyst Quotes

From the nVidia conference call, sayings by analysts that just ring clear to our ears:

I guess from an end demand perspective, first and foremost, beyond the limitations on the supply side, are you seeing any sort of abnormal seasonality or inventory related impact on demand as we look into the fourth quarter?
     - Ross Seymore - Deutsche Bank

I guess first of all on the gross margins, could you maybe give us some quantification about how much of that improvement was driven by improved mix with the transition to 55 and 40-nanometer and how much was driven by better product cost based on that or better mix based on more workstations or just higher end GPUs?
      - James Schneider - Goldman Sachs

Do you have a framework for how we should think about seasonality for the beginning of next year?
     - Tim Luke - Barclays Capital


And finally, some advice for companies who raise prices:

Q: Ddoes that imply that you are able to raise prices in this environment?

nVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang: We don't raise prices. There's no such thing. I mean, raising prices because demand is high is just bad mojo, man. You don't want to go there.

Source.

Reason to Cheer: ANSYS Q3 Revenues Flat

Ansys announces its Q3 revenues of $128.8 million were flat compared with the same quarter a year ago. In these recessionary times, that's doing good. Ceo Jim Cashman credits "our strong value proposition, combined with strong customer relationships built over many years, and our dedicated employees."

Net income, however, was up 7% to $41.4 million over a year ago.

For Q4, the company expects revenue in the range of $135.8-$141.8 million; for the full year, revenue of $502.3-$508.3 million. Next year, ANSYS expects to grow its revenues by 8%-13%. 

Source.

Ribbons and Tool Palettes

A reader asks:

I bought your ebook "Tailoring AutoCAD 2010 CUI." Great information and very clear. I am using AutoCAD Architecture 2010. I have some custom tool palettes with tools that I would like to get into the Ribbon.

I can't seem to find a way to link the tools from the host drawing into the Ribbon. Do you know of a way to do this? 

     - JSB

I am unfamiliar with Architecture, but your question fascinated me. I had never thought of this situation. I tried it out in AutoCAD 2010, and found it is not possible. Tools from the Tools palette cannot be placed in the Ribbon. Perhaps this is the reason that the Tools palette has its own customization command (Customize); it is independent of CUI.

  The only thing you could do is to customize the Workspace so that the appropriate Tools palette appears when you start AutoCAD and/or Architecture. To do this:

1. Start CUI command.

2. Open Workspaces node.

3. Open an existing workspace, or create a new one.

4. Over in the Workspace Contents area, open the Palettes node.

5. Open the Tools Palette node.

6. Down in the Properties section, click the Default Group droplist, and then choose the name of a Tools palette group.

To customize Tools palette groups, use the Customize command. It lets you group individual tabs (aka palettes) by named groups.

 

SpaceClaim 2009+... Soon

SpaceClaim will be releasing the 2009+ version of their software in two weeks. The update features multitouch interaction, new direct modeling capabilities, and improvements to prepping models for simulation.

www.spaceclaim.com

WorldCAD Access: 4x Subscribers in 1 Year

This blog has been around since December 2003, and maintained a steady readership over the years. Roughly 1,000 read it each weekday, and another approx. 700 read it through RSS feeds. 

A year ago, however, FeedBurner's graph showing the number of RSS subscribers changed its shape from flat to inclined. For a reason that I don't know, the number subscribers began to increase steadily. By last week, the number had quadrupled to 2,840 weekday subscribers. (You can see the number, delayed by a day, near the bottom of the blog, on the right hand side.)

Last week, another 1,630 read the blog directly in one day. I appreciate the 4,500 subscribers+readers who find this blog interesting enough to stop by each day. Thank you!

The IBM PLM Revenue Boost to Dassault -- Not So Much

Jay Vleeschhouwer reminds me that not all of the roughly $550 million in IBM PLM revenues will be added to Dassault's, since Dassault was already getting about $330 million from IBM.

I was double-counting.

ConstructWare Very Much Not Dead

Autodesk's Constructware was the victim of a flurry of dismay earlier in the year when someone in the industry suggested that ConstructWare  might not be getting any more updates. "No updates" is read as "nearly dead" in the software world. The claim resulted in a "No, not dead" response from Autodesk. This week, more proof it is not dead.

This week, this year's second update to ConstructWare:

• Reporting data download

• Bundled reports 

• Upgraded viewing of CAD files*

• User interface configuration 

Since this is Web-based software, the update is available the next time "members" log on.

www.autodesk.com/constructware

- - - 

*) Curious lack of support for Autodesk's 2010-line of DWG-based software:

A hallmark feature of Autodesk Constructware is the flexibility to view, mark up and upload not only Autodesk file formats, but also other CAD files and office documents.

Constructware 2010 continues this tradition ... including an upgraded viewing component that now supports AutoCAD 2009 files and the latest formats produced by other design tools in the market.

Ugh 2: Dassault Q3 Revenues Down 8%

Dassault Systems reports its revenues are down 8% overall, but the really ugly number was the 35% drop in new license revenue. Total revenue for the quarter was e291.7 million, down from 318.3 a year ago. In US$, that's roughly US$437.55 million.

Who's Gonna Be #1?

Releasing the number means we can take a stab at calculating whether Dassault will be the world's largest CAD software company, once it completes the $600-million acquisition of IBM PLM next year.

IBM PLM would contribute an estimated $530 million to Dassault. Let's assume conservatively it earns around US$1.9 billion next year without IBM PLM, or $2.4 billion with IBM PLM.  

Autodesk last year earned $2.3 billion, and maybe will do the same next year (after dipping below $2 billion this year). So the acquisition could well put Dassault over the top.

Source.

PTC Conference Call Notes

We used to look forward to hearing the ceo of PTC slag his competitors during quarterly conference calls with financial analysts, but yesterday Richard Harrison disappointed us by making merely neutral comments against Autodesk and Dassault.

On the Dassault Deal

Ross MacMillan of Jefferies & Co asked, "Just any implications from Dassault's yesterday to kind of buy out their PLM sales force, any implications for Parametric?"

Mr Harrison replied: "I think we're going to learn more about that in the coming quarters. I think it's something ...that we sort of saw happening eventually.

"...a simple level it's going to level the playing field. And so SAP, Siemens, PTC, and Dassault will now compete on an equal playing field.

"I think Dassault had the advantage of IBM [as its sales force], which is a great partner. And they're no longer going to have that. It's going to make our job of talking about our benefits with customers easier when we don't have to overcome the presence of the IBM company and their footprints in all of these large accounts. So it's, I think it's positive news for the market."

On PTC Sales

"The channel business was challenging for us in the fourth quarter and it was probably down about 25% year-over-year. The channel business actually performed better than the direct business for the first half of the year, and then worse than the direct business in the second half of the year."

"The best performing business for PTC this year ...was SMB [small and medium business] and PLM [product lifecycle management]. ...Arbortext is probably our third largest product line behind Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill.

"So we've seen in channel what some of our competitors have seen there, maybe Autodesk would be a good example, which is the low-end MCAD business has been impacted relatively significantly by the macro-economic environment."

On Not Hiring Americans

"Head count will increase slightly. Not a lot, probably 2% to 3% over the course of the year. Most of that increase, if not all of it will be driven by continued shift to low cost geographies. PTC's head count today, 36% of the head count is in low cost geographies compared to about 20% two years ago." 
 
On the Impending Recovery

"We would expect that that recovery would be in the second half of our next fiscal year."

PTC figures the recovering will come in waves, by world regions and by industries: "North America is starting out, China maybe is right behind there, in Europe and rest of Asia will probably follow."

On the Domino Theory

"And I think as investors, you are sometimes scratching your heads saying, 'I don't get it. Why are you so excited?' So let me first say, the number one reason fundamentally is because today's domino becomes tomorrows annuity.

"So, we are excited because it says that there is a big technology gap, that the gap is big enough that it's worth switching vendors and in most cases switching products. And it takes a big gap, because nobody likes to switch until -- or unless the gap is big enough that -- the system you thought was supposed to be helping you in our view is hurting you.

"The second thing, each domino win in turn influences so many other sales campaigns. I can't tell you how many deals entered our pipeline on the back of the ABS wins. Everybody said, 'If PTC can win, in that fairly hardcore environment, European company, co-ownership with the Dassault family, all that stuff. Then PTC must have something special, I better take a look at it.'"

On Wondering Where the Lions Are

James [Jim] Heppelmann: Neil, you just want to add to that?

Cornelius [Neil] Moses III: I couldn't have said it better myself, Jim.

James Heppelmann: Good.

Cornelius Moses III: Where are you Jim?

James Heppelmann: I am in Europe

Operator: Your next question comes from Steve [inaudible].

James Heppelmann: I am with an important European customer, Dick [Harris].

- - -

You can read the entire transcript at http://seekingalpha.com/article/169498-parametric-technology-corporation-q4-results-call-transcript

How Many Different Ways Can You Say It?

Here's a collection of headlines of Dassault buying... wait, I'll let them say it:


Australian IT: IBM sells unit to Dassault for $US600m

Michigan Technology News: Dassault Buys PLM Group From IBM For $600 Million - Ends IBM CAD Era

The Hendersonville Times-News: Dassault Takes I.B.M Unit for $600 Million

ChannelWeb: French Firm To Acquire IBM's PLM Sales, Support Business

Crain's Detroit Business: Parent of Auburn Hills-based Dassault Systemes Americas to buy IBM Corp. sales unit

PC World: Dassault Buys IBM's PLM Software Distribution Activities

The Register: Dassault picks up PLM unit from Big Blue

Zacks.com: IBM Selling Operations to Dassault

InformationWeek: IBM Spins Off PLM Unit To Dassault