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Management

CADfidential

31 May, 2005 By: Sara Ferris

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Budget Busters

Info-Tech Research Group says manufacturing is 50% more likely than other industries to cut IT spending in 2005. Its study, Manufacturing Industry 2005 IT Budget & Staffing Report, shows that 21% of manufacturers plan to decrease spending this year, compared with an average of 14% for other industries. "It's surprising that there is such a large gap between the cuts to IT planned by manufacturers and the cuts planned by other industries," says Frank Koelsch, Info-Tech executive vice president. "Manufacturing is already the third lowest spender per employee of all the industries we surveyed."

How often do you upgrade your main cad software?

Guard Change

Sean Flaherty takes over the reins at Nemetschek North America, developer of VectorWorks, following the retirement of company founder Richard Diehl, who served as CEO for twenty years. Formerly the senior vice president and chief technology officer, Flaherty was the second employee hired by the company, which began as Diehl Graphsoft and was acquired by German developer Nemetschek in 2000. Diehl will continue as chairman of the board of Nemetschek North America.

Acronym Watch

Industry analyst Jon Peddie predicts multicore, 64-bit computing will appeal to the CAADD market—those afflicted with computer-aided attention-deficit disorder. "You know who you are," says Peddie in his TechWatch weekly newsletter. "You're the twitchy multitaskers out there who get so much going on the computer that the thing ups and dies three or four times a day." www.jonpeddie.com

Piling Up Patents

Delphi was granted four U.S. patents and has another 18 pending on its CAD modeling methods, called Horizontal Modeling and Digital Process Design. These methodologies can be used with a number of CAD applications. Horizontal Modeling makes it easier to edit and change data in 3D CAD models, says Delphi, and Digital Process Design starts with horizontal models to create master process models and associated process sheets.

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Such a Deal

For a free download, Kubotek USA's new Spectrum viewer supports an impressive number of CAD formats in addition to its own KeyCreator and CADKEY formats. The company says the viewer also provides access to files created in Pro/ENGINEER 16- 2001, Unigraphics 11–18 and NX 1–2, CATIA V4.1–4.4, SolidWorks 98-2005, and Inventor 6-9 (all solids and surfaces). It also supports AutoCAD DWG and DXF Releases 11–2005 (drawings, wire frame, surfaces and solids).The viewer lets users print as well as view. Download the viewer at www.kubotek usa.com/products/spectrum

Targeting PDF

The next version of Windows, the oft-delayed Longhorn, will include an XML-based document format, code-named Metro, for printing and archiving documents. It appears similar to, and therefore a rival to, Adobe's PDF and PostScript formats. Metro will be licensed royalty-free, and users can open Metro files without a separate client. Longhorn is now expected to debut late next year.

So Long, Snow

Not only is National Manufacturing Week leaving McCormick Place in Chicago for the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, it's moving from its traditional late-winter time slot to late spring—May 21–23, 2006. The "week" is down to three days, but that's a trend we'd like to encourage, especially in regard to our work week.

Linux Love

Citing growing customer demand, UGS plans to add Linux support to its NX and Teamcenter products. Initial support is slated for the fourth quarter of 2005.

Flashback

In April, Toshiba celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the first mass-market notebook computer, the Toshiba T1100. Weighing in at nine pounds, the initial model featured a 4.77MHz Intel 80C88 processor, MS-DOS 2.11, one 720KB 3.5" disk drive and 512KB RAM. It sold for more than $4,000 in 1985.

Revenue Gains at UGS

UGS reported first-quarter revenues of $252.6 million, up 8% from the same period last year. Highlights for the quarter included 22 contracts worth more than $1 million each and several contracts in nontraditional markets such as shipbuilding, media and retail.

GIS Move

Autodesk will acquire Swiss company c-plan, a leader in the European GIS market with more than 2,000 users in 700 municipalities and utilities. Purchase price is about $18 million plus net working capital. Autodesk will continue to market c-plan products in Europe and incorporate its expertise into data management solutions for Map 3D and MapGuide.