Cold War II
CAD vendors who are shutting down their businesses in Russia (that I know about, so far):
- Autodesk
- PTC
- Siemens
- Graphisoft
- Dassault Systemes
- Altair
- Nemetschek Group
- Hexagon
- AVEVA
- SAP
As well, these twenty 3D manufacturing firms and publications: 3dprintingindustry.com/news/the-additive-manufacturing-industry-supports-the-security-and-foreign-policy-course-of-the-german-federal-government-european-union-and-nato-205472.
For its part, Nemetschek Group is doing the following actions:
- Organizing visas for local employees
- Providing refugee housing
- Donation matching for the humanitarian crisis in the Ukraine
- Suspending new business in Russia
- Suspending existing business with sanctioned individuals and organizations for the time being
Update 3 (Apr 27/22): We had indications that CAD vendors do not get a lot of revenue from Russia.
Hexagon confirms that Russia s approximately 2% of annual revenues, and so they took a Q1 write-down of e63 million.
SAP indicates that it lost 1% of its cloud backlog by backing out of Russia.
Russia represents around 2% of revenue in fiscal year 2022 for AVEVA.
For Dassault Systèmes, Russia represents less than 0.5% of non-IFRS revenues in 2021.
Perhaps these firms could be saving some money as they "freeze business operations" by no longer paying staff in Russia, although I do not know if this is the case.
Q&A
Which leads to questions:
Q: Why did these vendors pivot away from Russia but not, say, China?
A: Some estimates I have read suggest that Western firms make only 1%-2% of their revenues from Russia.
Q. Will western CAD software shut down when Russian users cannot renew their subscriptions?
A. Perhaps. It depends on how the subscription confirmation and payment systems are implemented. Permanent licenses are unaffected.
Q. Will these CAD vendors be allowed back into Russia after, um, peace breaks out?
A. Perhaps not. Russia has local versions of many kinds of software, which it has being trying to promote. Lowered foreign competition gives domestic firms greater opportunities for regional growth.
Russian replacements for western CAD software include
- nanoCAD (for AutoCAD)
- Renga (Revit)
- KOMPAS-3D (Inventor/Fusion, Creo, Solid Edge/NX)
- Neolant (P&ID, plant design)
- C3D Labs (Parasolid).
Russia Responds
From The Register, we learn that Russia plans
- Subsidies to develop software
- Offer jobs to foreign workers without having visas approved
- 0% tax rate for necessary tech companies
- Preferential mortgage rates for techies
- Exemption from military service
- Loans of 3% to firms that do not lay off staff
- Discount on insurance;
- Free TLS certificates for entities whose certs are revoked
Rumours abound that Russia will disconnect from the rest of the Internet March 11, something it actually tested a few years ago. Another rumour is that the government may nationalize Western businesses that left Russia.
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