Following PTC and Dassault reporting slower sales, Autodesk joins them today with flat profits.
Q4 profits were flat compared to a year ago ($96 million), and Autodesk executives cut their outlook on future profit for the next quarter and the full year. The share price promptly fell nearly 10%. The company put some of the blame on slower than expected sales in the Americas.
On the happy side, gross revenues rose 20% over a year ago. Autodesk shipped:
-- 21,000 commercial seats of Revit and NavisWorks.
-- 17,000 commercial seats of Inventor.
-- 7,500 commercial seats of Civil 3D.
17,000 seats of Inventor, in 90 days? Where are they, who is using them? As a SolidWorks Consultant/Contractor since 1999, I've never encountered a company that uses Inventor. I have encountered companies that use ProE, Alibre, SolidEdge, and CoCreate. I'm not sticking up for SolidWorks, my question is sincere.
Thanks,
Devon
Posted by: Devon T. Sowell | Feb 26, 2008 at 03:34 PM
maybe you should buy a seat
Posted by: john | Feb 26, 2008 at 04:29 PM
Devon, I personally think the wave is coming. I do say this as an Inventor user.
People never even used to know what Inventor was. I would have to say it was like SolidWorks, but made by Autodesk. Now a lot of people know what it is and I run into a lot of businesses that use it that are migrating from Autocad.
Kevin
Posted by: Kevin E. | Feb 26, 2008 at 06:11 PM
The 17,000 number is the highest for Inventor since 2005, as best as I can tell. The high value might be due to:
-- "forced" sales through the subscription program.
-- users of MDT and Mechanical who have to buy Inventor in order to get their software.
-- increased sales incentives for dealers.
Posted by: ralphg | Feb 26, 2008 at 07:29 PM
Ralph, thanks for the information.
John, if I saw a demand for my services using Inventor, I'd purchase a seat. But again, I've yet to see this in almost 9 years.
Devon
Posted by: Devon T. Sowell | Feb 27, 2008 at 07:47 AM
First let me say I sell SolidWorks. I used to drink the Autodesk Kool-Aid (AutoCAD R9 - 2000, MDT 1 & 2).
The Inventor numbers have always seem very inflated related to what I see in my market.
Ralph, I think your comments about "forced" sales and MDT / AutoCAD Mechanical users being included in the "Inventor" numbers accurately depicts what is really going on.
Posted by: John | Feb 28, 2008 at 09:12 AM
solidworks counts education licenses that it gives away so they all play with numbers
Posted by: bill | Feb 28, 2008 at 05:33 PM
Aren't the strings on this violin getting a little thin, "My sales are a less bloated then yours?"
Posted by: Mike | Feb 28, 2008 at 08:30 PM
Anyone can push copies of their software out there....by Microsofts counting, there are more "Paint" users out there than Photoshop so surely Paint is the better software, right?
If you want an accurate idea of how many seats are in use, at least by ratio, search for jobs on monster.com and careerbuilder.
Posted by: Jason | Feb 29, 2008 at 10:48 AM
If I were to look at the jobs available on Monster and Careerbuilder I could also view the information as those companies looking for people because they have the software to use.
If that is the case, then there should be more "forced" Inventor jobs available. Right?
Posted by: Mike | Feb 29, 2008 at 06:44 PM
Many jobs are just looking for solidworks or proe even though they don't have that software
the job I have now was looking for proe and inventor even though we use inventor
Posted by: bill | Mar 02, 2008 at 01:54 PM