Last year, Autodesk and other CAD vendors were thrilled at the rush of sales in Eastern European countries. A couple of Europeans confirmed to me back then that the action had shifted to the east (one a European CAD magazine editor, the other a European software distributor). Eastern Europe was the financial salvation that replaced Western Europe.
But the gold rush is over, because it was fool's gold. Some Swedish and Austrian banks may collapse soon because they loaned too much to Eastern Europe, whose countries may default.
As Autodesk noted in its quarterly report last week, sales in emerging countries fell 31% in the Nov-Jan timeframe from a year earlier. Expect emerging sales to fall further in future quarters.
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