Autodesk this week reacted to bloggers quoting company ceo Carl Bass, that in 2-3 years "The only way to use [every one of our products] will be online." Evan Yares in April was the first to highlight the video shot by TechCrunch. I read Evan's piece, and puzzled over the statement by Bass. In early November, Steve Johnson repeated it on his blog. The quote was recycled on a number of bulletin boards.
I watched for Autodesk's reaction, but after seven months there was nothing -- other than Autodesk's Marc Petit saying that there was no way all of his Media and Entertainment division's software could be cloud-based, due to the amount of data that gets processed for animations.
When Phil Bernstein was this week quoted by Business Standard as saying, "Our long-term strategy is to move everything there," I ran with the story. Then yesterday and today, Autodesk reacted by having Scott Sheppard place comments on Steve's blog and mine, suggesting that the private cloud is a viable alternative to the public one.
Today, Autodesk senior vp of industry strategy and marketing Andrew Anagnost called to emphasize that "'Everything moving to the cloud' is completely inaccurate. We are adding to what customers are doing today." There will always be desktop software; Autodesk just wants to be in the lead of all the technology changes occurring these days. Why Mr Bass said that, he does not know.
I'll run the full interview with Mr Anagnost in Monday's upFront.eZine. Subscribe now by sending 'subscribe upfront' to [email protected].
"Why Mr Bass said that, he does not know." ?????
Anagnost saying that he does not why Bass said that, is as big a mystery as Bass's first statement.
A senior VP contradicts his CEO, possibly because he CANNOT correct what is actually going to happen?
Posted by: R. Paul Waddington | Nov 16, 2012 at 10:55 PM
They did say "to the cloud." I think what is happening is someone with a smidgen of common sense said, "Wait a minute and lets see just how many may follow." I bet the answers once and finally asked scared them.
The other thing is the technical impossibility to make the cloud secure and to make it faster than the workstation on my desktop which I can buy free and clear for under $2,000.00 and have a smoking hot box.
Dassault has tried this for years and have yet to produce anything meaningful except ill will and I bet the same is now proving true for Autodesk.
Board room buzzwords and the desire for data hostages and income flow that is more for them in ways customers could not stop is fortunately proving far harder to do then they wish.
All these questions potential customers have been asking that they have assiduously avoided answering for years now because there are no good answers from the customers viewpoint.
I am of the opinion that if any major cad company seriously tries to force the cloud issue that huge numbers of ex customers will be staying on old seats they already own. I know shops that already do so and seem to be having no major problems and why in the world can't this idea work for many more? So what if your biggest customer has the latest Solid Works or Solid Edge of Inventor or whatever. They can send the file in a neutral format to their vendors and all is well for a long time without spending additional money to be able to work. I am seriously thinking of doing this myself in a couple of years and using what I have for the rest of my working career. There is only a certain level of functionality needed and past that it is just wants.
These cloud guys forget the idea that you should be producing something the CUSTOMER wants to buy and have replaced it with the idea that customers should be pleased to be chattel as they condescend to allow us to rent our intellectual property back from them.
Posted by: Dave Ault | Nov 17, 2012 at 09:32 AM
"Why Mr Bass said that, he does not know."
Carl Bass said it because he wanted to test the waters. Since then Autodesk's stock has taken a serious downward plunge.
Autodesk's senior management forcing users to the cloud isn't being accepted by many users. At this point Autodesk software users are speaking out about this shady tactic and making it clear they won't accept it.
Unfortunately what's happening now is that Autodesk senior management is using lower level Autodesk employees to try and cover up what amounts to horrible management and lousy marketing decisions that were made by Autodesk's most senior management.
How the HSMWorks acquisition was handled by Autodesk senior management is yet another sign of how badly Autodesk senior management understands the CADCAM market. Autodesk senior management is now trying to quell the rapidly building massive discontent with how the HSMWorks acquisition was handled by posting on the HSMWorks official forum. Sadly, I think most HSMWorks users and former HSMWorks resellers will gladly go along with these transparent tactics and then complain later when they get badly burned again.
Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn
Posted by: Jon Banquer | Nov 17, 2012 at 12:34 PM
What confusing statements!
Posted by: Patrick EMIN | Nov 18, 2012 at 02:02 AM