WorldCAD Access

How Samsung uses Dassault software to make a better touch interface

During Dassault Systemes' conference call last week with financial analysts, ceo Bernard Charles described how Samsung uses Simmula software for smartphone interface design: Samsung electronics. This is an interesting showcase because we all use more and more devices with our chat-touch devices [smartphones]. And as you know (and you have touch devices), you want more and more selectivity. And really if you have a big finger, you want to have great selectivity and precise typing capabilities. Samsung has selected SIMULIA to do this simulation, to really find out what will be the best. It serves for both the display and... Read more →

AU 2012 to pay speakers as little as zilch

You (or your firm) might be paying $2,05o to attend Autodesk University + flights, hotel, ground transportation. But the organization running Autodesk University is cutting the pay it gives people who give classes. One long-time speaker tells me pulled out after he learned about his new pay grade: Honoraria: Free admission to conference. No accommodation, no travel expenses covered. All virtual classes taught = $0 First live class taught = $0 Second live class taught = $400 Roundtable discussion = $100 The $400 for the second class tells me that AU is pressuring each speaker to come up with at... Read more →

Is ADSK the canary in our coal mine?

The head of marketing for a CAD vendor writes me: Everyone here is watching Autodesk pretty closely: Is it recession or bad management causing these issues at Autodesk? Soft demand in Europe is a huge worry for everyone, but Autodesk also reports a lack of demand in South America. Now, that's getting scary. Read more →

The downside to being well-known

Autodesk for years has yearned for its name to be as well known as a google or an apple, and today comes the downside to being well-known: bad news. Its poor Q2 performance led it to being featured on Techmeme. Here, take a look at the headlines being featured late yesterday afternoon: Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat: Autodesk down 22% in after-hours trading on disastrous earnings Teresa Rivas / Tech Trader Daily: Autodesk Q2, Guidance Comes In Light Bloomberg: Autodesk Tumbles On Reduced Sales Forecast And Job Cuts Eric Savitz / Forbes: Autodesk Q2 Misses; Guide Light; Cutting 500 Jobs; Shrs... Read more →

ADSK Q2 up 4% yoy (updated)

Autodesk this afternoon is reporting that its Q2 revenues rose just 4% over a year ago, to $569 million, because, as ceo Carl Bass explains: Our own execution challenges, combined with an uneven global economy, resulted in disappointing revenue results for the quarter. He plans to cut spending for the rest of the year, chopping jobs ("reducing its overall staffing levels") and the number of contractors, cutting travel (other than sales), and reducing the number of leased buildings ("consolidate certain leased facilities"). Blame it on the cloud: "This restructuring is squarely focused on our continued transformation and shift to more... Read more →

Supernovas good, meltdowns bad

During last week's ANSYS conference call with financial analysts, there was a discussion of supernova and meltdown, which I wanted to share with you. Here it goes (source): James E. Cashman (ANSYS ceo): And of course, if there's a complete meltdown or if it goes supernova, of course, those things will change. But nobody can really predict those because we can-- so we can really only go off the forecast, the upside and other factors like that, and then try to bounding box it with the-- with all the other exogenous factors. Sterling P. Auty (JP Morgan Chase): Well we're... Read more →

The secret language of financial analysts, and the ceos who enable them

I'm reading through the transcript of PTC's quarterly conference call, and came across some gems, in which you start to doubt your own veracity (as David Bromberg once put it). (Note: Unfortunately for Dassault, PTC now rarely speaks of "domino accounts"; instead, the new key phrase is "pipeline build.") I won't name the guilty, just lean back and enjoy it: Looking at Vertical Data Let me see if I have the vertical data here in front of me. I didn't-- when I look at it previously, I didn't notice any substantial trends on a vertical basis. No, I'm sorry. I'll... Read more →

Dassault disses the domino vendor, complains about invisibility

Every three months, PTC tells financial analysts about its Domino Theory: the company plants some software in a corner at a large corporation, who finds it invaluable, who adopts it company-wide, and finally who forces it on its suppliers for compatibility. As dominos fall, PTC posits, revenues rise. During last week's conference call, Dassault Systemes ceo Bernard Charles laughed at PTC's Domino Theory: Some of you track who track the competitive landscape might remember the famous domino effect claimed by one of the competitor. They were saying that the domino effect was going to be negative for Dassault Systemes. We... Read more →

Thibault takes over from Bernard

Once in a while, the transcripts from financial conference calls become amusing. Here is one such incident from yesterday, between the CEO and CFO of Dassault Systemes: CEO Bernard Charlès: Am I doing what you should be doing, Thibault, here? CFO Thibault de Tersant: Yes, you are. Mr Charlès: Okay. I apologize. I was so excited. Mr de Tersant: I’ll take over. Mr Charlès: So because when I saw the cash situation, I said, this cannot be my topic. So you can rewind the tape if you want and do whatever you want to do. I’m sorry for that. Mr... Read more →

Dassault flush with cash, increased sales in Q2

Big news out of Dassault this morning, as the company, which dubs itself "3DS," increased Q2 revenues up 17% over a year ago. Or as they put it, "organic double-digit revenue." Earlier they had already passed the magic $2-billion-a-year milestone, and now this year they are reaching for €2 billion ($2.452 billion). This number will be compared next month when Autodesk announces its quarterly results, as the two top CAD vendors battle each other for the #1 position of gross revenues. Siemens PLM Software could well be a contender, too, but prefers to keep its numbers a secret from the... Read more →

For Autodesk, switching to the cloud is bigger than the '90s switch to Windows

Jay Vleeschhouwer reports from the Autodesk annual analyst meeting held last week in New York: ... the “cloud”: Autodesk is “on the cusp of the biggest platform change in the history of the company”, having to do, in broad terms, with distributed, powerful computing. We estimate that the installed base to date of the principal 3D products exceeds 1 million commercial licenses... As of the end of FY12, the total active maintenance base, including sales of standalone applications and suites, was 3.166 million licenses... ...its experience has been that the customer demand gravitates to the higher-end versions [of suites]... Autodesk... Read more →

Autodesk ceo Carl Bass talks about Europe

The Autodesk share price fell 13% on Friday, partly because of weaker sales in Europe. During his conference call with financial analysts, ceo Carl Bass talked about what he sees in Europe: People are more optimistic, and I think partially, it's that people have gotten a little bit immune in the business community less than in the financial community to concerns over Greece, Spain, Portugal, whatever. So I think there's a sense in the business community that people need to drive their businesses forward. I think the business environment remains one in which people feel like they need to move... Read more →

Fluffy Facebook more valuable than a serious Siemens

With Facebook ending its first day as a publicly-traded company with a value of $104 billion, the company showed that playing trivial games, posting boring pictures, and trading banalities is worth more than a Siemens AG (at roughly $84 billion) who makes power plants, MRI machines, and the software to design the stuff that makes the world work -- as well as allowing Facebook users to like each other. Read more →

ADSK shares fell 13% today, because...

Q1 Lower than Expected During its earnings call, Autodesk claimed weak sales to EMEA [Europe, Middle East, Asia] and Media & Entertainment customers are hurting results; it blames the latter on a mix shift towards suites, and weak demand for Creative Finishing software. [Financial analyst] Jefferies also notes maintenance and backlog numbers were weak, but thinks Autodesk's margin improvements and transition to a subscription-based model will drive shares higher. Future Outlook Lower than Expected Although results weren't bad, the CAD software giant is guiding for FQ2 [fiscal quarter] revenue of $580M-$600M [million] and EPS [earnings per share] of $0.46-$0.51, largely... Read more →

Autodesk makes it official: they're #2

For many years, Autodesk was the largest CAD software company in the world, as measured by gross annual revenues. But something happened last fiscal year, and Dassault was able to pull ahead, just beating out the former #1. Now, it is a bit tricky measuring Dassault, because they report their revenues in Euros, and then have to translate them ito US$ -- and that exchange varies by the minute. The number listed below is provided by Dassaul themselves. The Top 4 CAD vendors are as follows: 1. Dassault Systemes $2.36 billion 2. Autodesk: $2.22 billion 3. Siemens PLM Software: $?.??... Read more →

Squeezing in four questions into the space of one

So that everyone gets a turn, financial analysts are supposed to ask just one question during conference calls with public companies. But they have their ways of sneaking in four questions. Here are examples from last week's PTC Q4 2011 earnings call transcript: - - - Operator: Our next question comes from Jay Vleeschhouwer with Griffin Securities. Jay Vleeschhouwer (Griffin Securities): I'd like to ask first a two-part question... Jay Vleeschhouwer: Just two follow-ups, if I may... - - - Operator: And our final question comes from Ross MacMillan with Jefferies. Ross MacMillan (Jefferies & Company): Either Jim or Jeff,... Read more →

Some nosedive, ADSK, PMTC!

What is with the share price of US public CAD vendors? (chart credit: yahoo.com). Here's Autodesk: And here's PTC: Read more →

How does everyone gain market share in a mature market?

Who's really gaining market share? When you listen to certain CAD ceos, you would think that all of them are gaining market share. That's where everybody gets a bigger slice -- of what? At Autodesk's conference call with financial analysts last week, Walter Pritchard of Citigroup wanted to know how "everybody" could be increasing the size of their slice. Mr Pritchard: "We talked to other players in the space. Everybody sort of claims that they're gaining share, and defending turf, or expanding into new turf -- mostly around manufacturing. (In the AEC space, not so much contended.) But just curious,... Read more →

Autodesk's ceo talks about the double-dip recession, and we listen in

In yesterday's conference call, financial analysts were concerned about the second recession towards which the USA seems to be heading. Their concern stems from their worry that Autodesk won't make as many profits in the next year. Here is how ceo Carl Bass reacted to their questioning, as recorded by Seeking Alpha, and mildly edited by me. The thing that strikes me the most is the disconnect between what we're seeing in the financial markets and how our customers are behaving. In most of my recent meetings with customers, they're seeing business to be fairly strong and it's been evidenced... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: PTC sales return to CAD, much to the company's surprise

This week, upFront.eZine has for your reading pleasure: 1. 11Q2: PTC Returns to the CAD Bandwagon 2. Photos from my Son's Wedding You can read all about this week's business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2011/upf-690.htm Read more →

The Vleeschhouwer Report: Autodesk's 2012 product launch, fiscal year highlights

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Following on its product launch webcast of last evening, Autodesk today formally unveiled its regular annual product releases. The "2012" releases comprise its two largest standalone products – AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT – and of course the portfolio of manufacturing, AEC, and infrastructure products. These include the AutoCAD-based vertical products, as well as Inventor, Revit, Moldflow, NavisWorks, and so on. The new “2012” products will commence shipping next month, and then the roll-out will continue thereafter depending on country and language. Suites, Suites, Suites The main news – and indeed the main thrust of the product strategy... Read more →

ASDK 12Q4 conference call: my favorite lines

Here are my favorite lines from Autodesk's conference call last Thursday with financial analysts: "When you SKU by SKU, you don't see great variability in ASPs." "I think, some of this is a potpourri of stuff. I mean, it's labeled that way." "Or kind of what is that?" "And then a more broadly kind of derivative question: is the new categorization of new and adjacent-- it's kind of a bunch of different products." "So hopefully, that algorithm answers your question and gives you a little perspective as you start to model that going forward." "We don't guide that per se... Read more →

The Vleeschhouwer Report: Interesting bits from Adobe Systems's 2010 10-K

by Jay Vleeschhouwer The following are several items from the 144-page 2010 10-K report that seemed interesting or incremental. The Adobe text is in italics followed by some of my comments on the text. Creative Solutions. The increase [in Creative Solutions segment revenues] was driven largely by a 23% increase in both Creative Suites and Photoshop point product revenue as compared to the prior year. The overall number of units licensed increased 23% when compared to fiscal 2009. Unit average selling prices, excluding large enterprise license agreement (“ELA”) deals, remained relatively stable during fiscal 2010 as compared to fiscal 2009.... Read more →

The Vleeschhouwer Report: The State of SolidWorks for 2011

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Dassault Systemes' SolidWorks, the company’s second-largest brand in terms of revenues, held its annual SolidWorks World conference for users, resellers, third-party developers, and other partners. The event is comparable to Autodesk’s annual Autodesk University and Parametric Technology’s annual event. SolidWorks has used the event each year to highlight new technology and products, corporate strategy, and its view of the market. The CEO of the parent company made his second appearance at the opening general session (last year was the first such appearance), underscoring how Dassault’s management wants to have SolidWorks perceived and managed as an integral part... Read more →

We love analysts for the incomprehensible stuff they say...

My favorite lines from last week's PTC conference call with financial analysts: "And last question, and I’ll get back in the queue just to keep beating the dead horse." (Sterling Auty) "Is that where we can expect the level to kind of trend for a while? Or do you expect that level to pick up, or maybe even dip a little bit? How consistent would that level be going forward?" (Yun Kim) "And I think just to again add some more color, clearly we have taken you guys through this domino monetization model." (Jim Heppelmann) And here comes my favorite... Read more →

Pursuing payables

I read an article this morning that talked about Logitech. John Hempton of Bronte Capital is puzzled why they are still in business, what with the new crop of devices not needing much in the way of peripherals (Android phones, tablets, et al). He forgot that there are something like a quarter of a billion desktop computers still sold each year, and that peripherals wear out (I recently got a new, $100 Logitech keyboard), and that aunts and uncles need to buy gifts for their computer-using relatives, and that for some people shopping is a form of raising self-esteem. Also,... Read more →

The Vleeschhouwer Report: Observations on the AU 2010 user conference

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Autodesk’s annual Autodesk University conference -- for customers, developers, resellers, other industry partners, and a gaggle of analysts -- reinforced several recurring themes about the company, namely its almost unique position in the industry in terms of the breadth of its product portfolio for addressing multiple end-market design technology requirements. Attendance was up nicely from last year, though not back to pre-recession levels. The conversations with various relevant channel partners suggest that the business is doing well (though not back to 2008 levels in every case, as we can see from Autodesk’s own recent segment results), but... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: For Autodesk, Happy Days are Here Again

In this week's upFront.eZine, we have for you... Happy Days are Here Again: Autodesk Reports on 11Q3 Plus letters from readers. You can read all about the business of CAD this week at www.upfrontezine.com/2010/upf-668.htm PS: Next week's upFront.eZine will arrive late next, because I will be attending Autodesk University 2010 in Las Vegas, USA. I hope to blog some of the events live here on WorldCAD Access and on www.twitter.com/ralphg Read more →

ADSK: First read of 3QFY11 results and outlook

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Autodesk’s total revenues of $476.7 million, up 14%, exceeded my $465.8 million estimate, with each of the four business segments exceeding the segment forecasts. Maintenance revenues were slightly more than estimated, but billings were lighter than estimated, resulting in a sequential decline in deferred maintenance revenues. Non-GAAP earnings of $0.32 a share were slightly below my $0.33 a share estimate, on higher sales & marketing and G&A expenses (R&D was in line); still, the 21.0% non-GAAP operating margin was a 260 basis point improvement year/year, and the company should be on its way to a more than... Read more →

Parametric Technology Analyst Meeting Highlights

by Jay Vleeschhouwer As a follow-up to the November 1st commentary on PTC’s “Creo” launch, and the issues pertaining to that, I will add some highlights from the recent analyst meeting in New York. As preamble, at the heart of what PTC is trying to do is induce better growth in the product design applications business, while improving the profitability of the Windchill business through (continued) disproportionate license growth, from which would follow high-margin maintenance business over time. For the former, important details need to be filled in by the first release of the Creo portfolio next June (pricing and... Read more →

Autodesk 3QFY11 Preview

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Autodesk will be reporting 3QFY11 on Thursday, November 18th. In keeping with improving trends elsewhere in the group (at least in the manufacturing vertical market, with Ansys’, Dassault Systèmes’, and PTC’s results), Autodesk – the most diverse vendor in terms of addressed markets - will have seen gains more or less across the board. I’m estimating total revenues of $465.8 million, up 12% year/year, with non-GAAP earnings of $0.33 a share (the third quarter revenues last year were down 31%). The 4QFY11 (January 2011) estimate assumes revenues of slightly more than $500 million, up 10%, driven mostly... Read more →

Adobe Systems: A Day in LA (Updated)

by Jay Vleeschhouwer As a follow-up to my October 26th comments on the annual Adobe MAX conference, I will share some observations of the analyst meeting held during MAX. Management opened with the set of growth drivers (and other aids to the business) for Adobe, including: Multi-screen (the increasing plethora of ways of interacting with applications and content through glass). A broader set of customers for the desktop business. Partners, such as Google. Creative Suite adoption. More services. Content optimization and monetization (Omniture). New products (the launch of Digital Publishing Suite at MAX received perhaps the most attention) And enterprise.... Read more →

The Jay Vleeschhouwer Report on AutoCAD for Macintosh

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Autodesk has reinstated the availability of AutoCAD on the Mac, as expected since at least December 2008. At that time, I wrote in a note: [We] could envision that as part of its product strategy for 2009 and beyond, Autodesk could reinstate or introduce wider availability of some of its key products on the Mac platform. There are of course some products today that do run on the Mac but we could see a material presence. Indeed, up until about the mid-1990s Autodesk did have a reasonable presence on the Mac along with Windows. However that commitment... Read more →

Autodesk cutting prices early

It's not even Q4 and Autodesk is already cutting the price of its software through mail-in refunds. It's Q4 (Nov-Jan) that's usually the prime discount season, as Autodesk seeks to goose sales one last time before its fiscal year end. Today, the goosing begins now. Buying a new commercial seat of AutoCAD gets you $300 off the $4,000 price tag; throw in Windows 7, and the savings leap to a stupendous $400. Offer valid until Oct 17 -- two weeks before the end of Q3. Savings also available on a few other Autodesk software packages. Source. Read more →

Avatech likes reverse mergers

Avatecvh Solutions has taken over Rand Worldwide to create the world's largest AutoCAD dealer. Avatech originally became a public company by doing a reverse merger of PlanetCAD. Five years ago, WorldCAD Access reported: PlanetCAD was renamed from Spatial, after the ACIS-half of Spatial was bought by Dassault Systemes. Through a reverse buy-out, PlanetCAD took over Avatech, and then changed its name to Avatach -- along the way avoiding a hostile takeover by PCD Investments -- so that Avatech could go public. Yesterday, Avatech did a similar thing, explaining it thusly: Avatech Solutions acquired all issued and outstanding capital securities of... Read more →

Can you make your hockey stick bigger than PTC's hockey stick?

Here's some more of that special love language financial analysts use during conference calls with executives of publicly-held CAD companies. Steven Koenig of Longbow Research LLC asks: ...maybe just a few other things I would love to get a little more granularity on. One question would be linearity in the quarter and how to close rates to load up. James Heppelmann, future ceo of PTC: On the linearity thing, we have a bit of a hockey stick within the quarter, and then we certainly have our hockey stick within the year and I would say the macro forces are pushing... Read more →

Jay Vleeschhouwer on active CAD seats, Autodesk sub numbers

by Jay Vleeschhouwer You ran two interesting stories this week, one on the active CAD users and the other on ADSK’s most recent results. In terms of the former, in a report earlier this year, I noted that the active maintenance base of 3D CAD seats was in a range of 925,000-1.0 million, as of the end of 2009, including, for instance, 133,500 Pro/Engineer seats and about 220,000 Solid Works seats. Catia would appear to have the largest number of such seats, accounting for roughly just over a fourth of the industry base. In addition, I calculated that the annual... Read more →

Autodesk subscription numbers -- in its own words

Autodesk has 2,383,000 customers on subscription, the sum being of educational + commercial users. This number is up 5% from a year ago (adjusted for the mid-2010 addition of educational seats). In Q1, Autodesk recognized $195 million in revenues from subscriptions, up 7% from a year ago. Works out to $327 per customer, on an annualized basis. ("Recognized," because Autodesk has to split the annual subscription payment it receives from customers over four financial quarters. For this reason, $492 million is deferred to future quarters.) $51 million was revenue from upgrades in Q1, a number that's 50% higher than the... Read more →

Motley Fool criticizes Autodesk's newly expensive upgrade pricing

Even as Autodesk is defending its really expensive new upgrade pricing over at Steve Johnson's blog nauseam as "less expensive," professional money watchers are unimpressed by the spin. Motley Fool's Anders Bylund wonders in "Why Autodesk Upgrades Failed to Spark a Frenzy" if charging 50% of list for upgrades is behind Autodesk ceo Carl Bass's admission, "I wouldn't get too excited about share gains in a single quarter." Mr Bylund notes that share gains are normal when a new software release ships, as pent up demand is fulfilled. Larger companies than Autodesk, such as Adobe and Microsoft, are not as... Read more →

ADSK Q1 up 11% over a year ago

As I predicted three months ago, Autodesk today switched how they compare their financial results. In Q4, the emphasis was on how well the company did with the previous quarter, Q3 -- because the comparison with Q4 a year earlier was too dismal. The standard is to compare financial results with the year earlier, because that evens out seasonality -- the fact that products sell more strongly in some parts of the year, more weakly in other parts. Sure enough: in today's press release, Autodesk announces, "[Q1] Revenue Grows 11 Percent to $475 Million" -- as compared with Q1 a... Read more →

Bentley revenues down 10% in 2009

Although privately owned, Bentley Systems nevertheless produces an annual report that contains a limited number of financial statements. There is one crucial number we won't get particularly precisely from the annual report, since it is shown by a graph with a vague Y axis: the annual revenues. The accompanying press release notes, however, that revenues were $450 million. What you don't get from the press release, however, is how this compares with previous years. Instead, an accompanying sentence shines in its optimism: The report emphasizes the company's financial resilience -- as 2009 GAAP revenues of over $450 million represented subscription... Read more →

nVidia shares plunge 10% on good news

nVidia Q1 revenues jumped to $1 billion, up an amazing 51% over the $664 million the company made in the recession-bound quarter a year earlier. And it switched from a huge loss of $201.3 million last year to a huge profit of $137.6 million this year. Share prices show no love for the present; their concern is only for hearing a happy answer to "What will you do for me next?" And the answer is not happy: "For the July quarter, Nvidia forecast that revenue would fall 3 to 5 percent from the previous period, implying sales of $950 million... Read more →

CAD vendor share prices feel effects of May 6 dive

The share prices of CAD vendors felt the effect of a trader's mistake, taking a 10% plunge and then recovering half-way moments later. This chart from Yahoo shows what happened to Autodesk and PTC share prices during the afternoon of May 6: Read more →

Dassault to PTC: eat our dust

PTC is making much of its plan to increase its EPS (earnings per share) by 20% a year for five years. (I wonder what happens after the Five-Year Plan ends?) A company gets more earnings by increasing revenues and cutting costs. Considering that PTC's revenues might only increase by 7% this year, that's a whole lot of cost cutting that's gotta happen. In today's conference call, Dassault Systems shot back: "We are increasing our non-IFRS EPS growth target to about 18 to 23 percent growth," says cfo Thibault de Tersant. Well, Q1 was "just" 16%, so DS also has some... Read more →

PTC keeps predicting it'll be back in the Billion-Dollar Club this year

PTC is the canary in the coal mine we call the CAD business, as it is the first of shareholder-owned CAD vendor to report its quarterly results. The Q2 revenues of $240.6 million are up 7% year-over-year -- but down 7% from last quarter. Traders took the news poorly, felling the share price by 7% in after hours trading. The company figures Q3 will bring in $235-$245 million (flat with this quarter), but that the entire year will still nudge it back into billion-dollar territory ($1.015 billion). The company plans to grow itself 20% a year for the next five... Read more →

Avatech shareholders wanting improve share price through sale, merger, or other tactic

It's not secret that AVSO is almost like the penny stock of CAD vendors, typically valued at under $1, usually around 50 cents. Shareholders want to boost the value, and so a group of them are agitating to get some "enhancing shareholder value" going. They are willing to work with management, and propose that Avatech be sold, merged with another firm, reorganized -- just do something! For its part, Avatech says, I don't think so. Or, in the words of ceo George Davis, "We remain committed to our current strategic plans..." In response, the AVSO share price shot up 25%... Read more →

ASCON reports on fiscal year 2009

Like privately-own American CAD vendors, it is rare for Russian ones to provide any detail on their finances. When I visited with them last fall, they commonly described their finances using relative percentages -- even Autodesk CIS. This year, ASCON has decided to go bold by revealing real numbers -- not just relative percentages! ASCON is probably the largest Russian CAD vendor; I say "probably" because of the lack of hard data. David Levin of Not Just Russian CAD/PLM reports on a press conference held earlier today by ASCON. In summary: - 2009 revenues were approximately US$18 million (converted from... Read more →

Most frequent words uttered during ADSK conference call

Seeking Alpha analysis the transcripts of financial for the most frequently used words. They are listed, unfortunately, in alphabetical order. Here is the list for Autodesk's most recent conference call: bass - business call - carl - comes deals fiscal going hawkins kind line - look - lot manufacturing - many - mark now one - operator people products quarter question really see things - think - time - two yearSource. Read more →

Rolling in dough: ANSYS revenues up 6% on the year

ANSYS is pretty chuffed to announce that their annual revenues in 2009 were $524.9 million, up 6.1% over a year ago. That makes this "add-on" software maker as big as Bentley Systems. For 2010, the company expects to grow revenues by as much as 9.5% higher. Ceo Jim Cashman explains his company's success: Looking ahead, all of the factors driving simulation remain in full force as companies strive to compete with next generation products, and with smarter products that are increasingly energy efficient and productive. The big CAD vendors can only look on in envy. Source. Read more →

ASDK FY10 revenues down 26%

Autodesk is reporting its Q4 and fiscal year 2010 revenues today, and they are down: Q4 revenues of $456 million are down 7% from a year ago. (Bright side: this is up 9% from last quarter. although Q4 is traditionally the quarter with the most driven sales.) 2010 revenues of $1.7 billion are down 26% from last year. For Q1, Autodesk expects revenue in the range of $420-$440 million. Source. Read more →