CADfidential

Behind the scenes in the world of CAD

Bentley in China

Drawn by China's massive investment in its infrastructure, Bentley Systems will manage its Asia operations from Beijing. Bentley also offers targeted Chinese communities free introductory subscriptions to its CAD software.

How often do you believe you should have to upgrade your CAD software?

Dollars for Downtime

Arena Solutions offers an uptime guarantee for its on-demand PLM (product lifecycle management) software. Customers receive a credit against their subscription if their PLM solution does not deliver a minimum planned uptime of 99.5%.

Silver Jubilee

Happy 25th anniversary to ACS Software, developer of AutoEDMS document management software.

Don't Dis DOS

McNeel & Associates released DOSLib, a free library of AutoLISP-callable functions that provide Windows and DOS command-line functionality in AutoCAD 2000–2007. Download it at www.en.na.mcneel.com/doslib.htm.

Hold on a Minute

After chatting with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), ANSYS elected to refile its premerger notification under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act with respect to its acquisition of Fluent. ANSYS continues to expect closing in the second quarter of 2006, although that timeline may change if the FTC requests additional information.

CAD Society Honor Roll

Pay Now . . . or Later

Intergraph recorded another payoff on its Clipper CPU design patent, this one from Sony of Japan, which will make a one-time, up-front royalty payment of $15 million for worldwide license to Intergraph's patent portfolio. Intergraph's IP division has in the past sued technology powerhouses such as Intel, HP, Dell and Gateway for alleged infringement on its Clipper technology and collected settlements ranging from $10 million (Gateway) to $225 million (Intel).

Linux Lovers

UGS now offers a version of its NX 4 CAD software for Linux (Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server). The Linux operating system and 64-bit computing are two of the technologies most requested by its customers, UGS says.

Market Metrics

Daratech's most recent estimates for the PLM market project a 2006 total of $12 billion, up 14% from the previous year's $10.4 billion. Dassault leads the PLM market, followed by UGS, PTC and Autodesk. Daratech also projects the 2006 plant-design software market to surpass $700 million in 2005 and grow by 11% to $800 million in 2006. Intergraph is the plant-design market leader, followed by Bentley, AVEVA and Autodesk.

Translation Transaction

To augment its Acrobat 3D visualization and collaboration software, Adobe Systems has acquired TTF (Trade and Technologies France), developer of CAD data interoperability software. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. TTF is a privately held company whose products include CAD translators and software libraries for high-end 3D visualization.

NC Software Taking Off

Market research firm CIMdata estimates that the worldwide market for NC (numeric control) software and related services grew by 6.5% in 2005 to $1.25 billion. CIMdata predicts that in 2006 the market will increase by 7.2% to $1.34 billion. Growth rates reportedly are the highest since 1999, when the market grew by 8%.