WorldCAD Access

The Fallout from Autodesk’s Financial Misadventure

Opinion The problem with subscriptions is that they generate a lot of money that companies cannot immediately report as income. Think of it: you pay Autodesk $2,000 to use AutoCAD for one year. Autodesk earns $2,000, but then can report only one-quarter of it ($500) in its next quarterly report. The other $1,500 sit in a bank account and cannot be used. Then, in the next quarter, it can report another $500 and start spending it. And so on. What if there were clever ways to report more of it sooner? Autodesk “incentivized customers” to Accept multi-year upfront billing, typically... Read more →

Software vendors DeSpArAtE for your data

Opinion When Adobe announced this week that it would access user content via “automated and manual methods” to improve its software, Twitter went nutso. Specifically about section 2.2 [source] of the new license: "Our automated systems may analyze your Content... using techniques such as machine learning in order to improve our Services and Software and the user experience." The new ToS [terms of service] were lobbed at users, who, of course, have no choice but to accept the one-sided licensing: "By closing this window [announcing the new ToS], you’ll be unable to continue using Adobe apps and services." Well, users... Read more →

ITC Takes Two Members to Arbitration

Opinion The IntelliCAD Technical Consortium is no stranger to law suits, having launched ones in the past against members not following its Commercial Membership Agreement, such as for not paying fees. ITC is unlike regular software companies; the “customers” the ITC has are software companies that deploy IntelliCAD DWG editor, either in-house or for resale under their own brand names. This week ITC launched arbitration cases against two members, JyaCAD Solutions Private Limited of India and Shanghai Erow Information Technology Co of China. In both cases, ITC is asking the arbitrator to find that the companies breached the ITC membership... Read more →

Ark vs Matidor

The clearcut is murky Law suits between companies accusing the other of stealing technology are not uncommon. I’ve been involved in a couple of them as an expert consultant, such as Intergraph suing HP over using CPUs containing technology that the courts had earlier found had been stolen by Intel; a refrigeration company suing a startup after an employee left with DWG files; and so on. In all cases, the offending party apologizes, or is found guilty and/or pays monetary compensation. Here’s a story that goes one step further: it asks whether industry recognition ought to be stripped from the... Read more →

ITC vs Gstarsoft Ends in Settlement

No one lost IntelliCAD Technical Consortium had launched its lawsuit against Gstarsoft about a year ago, claiming that the Chinese software vendor was misusing code from ITC's IntelliCAD. The issue was that Gstarsoft was no longer a member of the ITC, yet is appeared that some items unique to IntelliCAD were in the GStarCAD software. Today the results of the suit were announced; I'll run the English portion of the bi-lingual press release as it is concise: “The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium” (the “ITC”) and Suzhou Gstarsoft Co. Ltd. (“Gstar”) are pleased to announce that they have reached a full and... Read more →