WorldCAD Access

Odom to Autodesk: I Own Ribbon Resizing

It's a good thing Autodesk didn't lay off any of its lawyers, because it'll need to reassign a few of them to defend itself against Gary Odom, who claims to have a patent on how toolbars are handled (cf. Tool Group Manipulations). In his claim for damages (for no "less than a reasonable royalty"), he specifically targets the ribbon interface Autodesk added to AutoCAD 2009. The ribbon interface was designed by Microsoft, and was unhappily imposed on the Rest of the World by the likes of SolidWorks, SpaceClaim, and Autodesk. Oden is also suing Microsoft. Reading patents is a mind-twisting... Read more →

Warning: The Source Overcharges

Today's email blast from The Source (the Canadian version of Circuit City) highlights gaming computers. The first item is the ACER ASPIRE AM5700-E5731A DESKTOP COMPUTER GAMING BUNDLE, which comes with a 7200rpm 640GB hard drive. Red all-caps text, however, screams that you can UPGRADE TO 1TB FOR $650. Surely 1TB of RAM, I thought. After all, these days 1TB drives are under $200 and some even around $100. I checked the specs for the ACER ASPIRE AM7720-E7730A DESKTOP COMPUTER GAMERS BUNDLE but no, the extra $650 was for an added 320GB worth of disk space. Works out to $2.03 per... Read more →

$$$ = PTC

As of this morning, Autodesk's cash = PTC's market capitalization... ADSK cash and cash equivalents -- $917.6 million PMTC market capitalization -- $915.44 million (as of 7:30am PDT) But it ain't gonna happen, for Autodesk ceo Carl Bass says: I would say our tolerance for acquisitions has gone way down in this environment.... So the only acquisitions I could imagine making are really small, tucked in technology ones, and even those I'm not sure we will be able to come to agreement on them. So there. Read more →

Restoring Balance to Software Licensing

Owen Wengerd is writing a series of important articles on the need to restore balance to software licenses: Software Licensing: A Case For Reform Software Licensing: Who's On First? Over in Australia, the government is looking into doing exactly that. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Nick Abrahams writes in When 'I Accept' is not really 'I Accept' (h.t. R. Paul Waddington): Last week the Australian government launched a discussion paper which takes aim at organisations that use "take it or leave it" standard form contracts and the technology sector is squarely in its sights.... The Minister for Competition Policy and... Read more →

Ugh: Autodesk Sales Down 1/3

Autodesk is being hammered by a huge drop in sales of its software. Here are some items from last week's conference call with financial analysts: AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT declined 29%. Revenue from 2D vertical products decreased 21%. 3D modeling software revenues fell "just" 1%. Revenue from Media and Entertainment decreased 26%. Revenue from Advanced Systems decreased 36%. Animation revenue decreased 18%. Revenue from new seats decreased 33%. Total upgrade revenue, including cross-grades, decreased 32%. The declines are in Q4 relative to sales from a year ago. More details from the conference call in today's upFront.eZine. Read more →