CAD Vendors Declare War on Prices!!!

In Germany, CAD Schroer is wooing those who downloaded the free version of their STHENO/PRO drafting software for Pro/ENGINEER users: download it free, and then get a 75% discount. 

Once you get past the large print, you learn from the small print it's not quite 75%. You pay $875 for the software (there's the 75% discount), but also have to purchase the one-year software support and maintenance contract for another $585. Now the discount stands at a somewhat less thrifty 64%. Offer ends 30 November (but I would expect to see it extended "due to popular demand" or some similar reason). Details here.

Autodesk has the same offer: download AutoCAD LT free and then after 30 days pay for a license at a 46% discount, after two rebates are included. Offer ends 15 January, two weeks before Autodesk's fiscal year-end.

ZWCAD vs AutoCAD in China 

ZWSoft is taking advantage of Autodesk's massive 80% price cut in China to artfully respond. The way this article reads, it sounds as if Autodesk lowered the price of AutoCAD to match that of ZWCAD's. 

In reaction, ZWSoft is halving the price of their IntelliCAD-based ZWCAD. Offer valid until Feb 3 of next year.

I don't know if Trading Markets is presenting the "ZWCAD Software Kicks Off Price War with Autodesk" as an article or a press release. Nevertheless, it offers up juicy gossip on the CAD world in China:

Autodesk's price-cutting aims to push out ZWSOFT and snatch market share from its Chinese peers, pointed out [ZWCAD's] Liu Yufeng. 

Actually, Autodesk has been leading China's CAD field with a 50% market share. In recent years, CAXA Technology Co., Ltd. and ZWSOFT geared up in the domestic market through the promotion of multifunctional and low-price products. From 2007 to 2009, ZWSOFT's number of newly authorized uses has caught up with that of Autodesk. 

Besides, homegrown CAD software companies formed a CAD software alliance under the leadership of ZWSOFT, enabling partners to develop applications freely on the latter's platforms, which received warm welcome from customers and imposed great pressure on Autodesk. 

Insiders deem that unsatisfying performance is another reason for Autodesk's markdown. ...Its sales value even dived 42% in the emerging market. At the end of 2008, Autodesk announced a decision to change the president of its Greater China region.

Comments

[Jonathan C Yeandle]

Hello Ralph,

It is very peculiar that the CAD industry are continuing to duck the issue which may yet sink most of them.

The majority of 'tools' which an engineer has to buy have transparent costs. This makes the viability of the purchase clear at the instant the arithmetic gets done.

The viability of a CAD purchase has become even more uncertain in the current economic situation if you have to factor in years of 'rent' in addition to a 'purchase' price.

There are no CAD applications out there which can give an honestly quantified ROI. Each new release claims anything from 30% to 150% productivity increase. This is clearly bunkum! If it were even 5% accurate then we would hardly ever need to sit in front of a CAD screen anymore.

For those users who have access to existing 'bought and paid for' CAD platforms, the up-grade/purchase of a new release will quite likely need to factor in the hardware upgrade cost and the additional upgrade costs of all those 'mating' applications which will no longer work with the new CAD release. And then there is the nebulous costs of re-training/learning in order to uncover where all the original features have been hidden.

The emerging countries are as easily capable of producing more desirable CAD solutions as they were of producing more desirable motor cars, motorcycles, TV's etc.

Existing CAD suppliers need to learn the same lessons rather rapidly.

Kind regards,
Jonathan