A story from inside Autodesk in the early days of Carol Bartz as ceo

Nilofer Merchant writes in Business Week on There's More to Innovation Than Good Ideas:

As Autodesk CEO, Carol Bartz wanted fast action on innovation, but her plan didn't work out. Nilofer Merchant explains how to avoid the "Air Sandwich."

Ms Bartz got the idea to launch six new product lines with in 18 months. The story, unfortunately, doesn't tell us what they were.

(Over at the Wall Street Journal, Ms Merchant gives us one of the endings to the story: "I got fired by Carol Bartz [the CEO] of Autodesk.")

Comments

[faded_Aztec_van_LOL]

Well if I can offer some speculating: Carol Bartz ADSK CEO 1992-2006 & Nilofer Merchant's days @ Autodesk ended prior to 1999 (Merchant started her own consulting firm that year). So Autodesk's attempt to bring 6 new products to market within 18 months must have occurred in the late '90's. I'm guessing Nilofer's experiences are based on the 1997 Sofdesk acquisition & the rush to bring AutoCAD 14 to market (darn @#$% AutoCAD 13!). My memories of 1997 are as long gone as my P1 Win95 clone running Netscape over dialup, and my late '90's 'Net RSP' fund. I remember AutoCAD R14, Sofdesk, Genius & Actrix coming to market around that time, but not 6 new products... I wonder what products didn't make it... hmmm...