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| Architosh News Reports | |
| Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com) |
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Mac CAD News: Microsoft enters CAD market with Visio acquisition
Late last week Microsoft announced stunning news that it would acquire Visio Corporation in a stock swap worth $1.3 billion. Microsoft enters the world of CAD and technical drawing and diagramming software with its planned purchase of Visio Corporation, an industry leading and award-winning software developer of business technical drawing and CAD software. Visio is the maker of numerous technical drawing and diagramming programs and the maker of IntelliCAD, an up-and-comer in the Windows CAD market with its proclaimed unparalleled AutoCAD file support. Now the entire CAD world is wondering what Microsoft may do now that its in the CAD market. Microsoft's Intentions Microsoft plans on running the Visio division as an autonomous unit with Visio CEO Jeremy Jaech becoming a Microsoft vice president. The deal calls for MS to exchange 0.45 shares of its stock for each share of Visio stock, giving it a value of around $1.3 billion. The deal has not yet been approved by regulators but is expected to go through. While there will be no immediate changes with Visio's product lines, Microsoft's statements seem to suggest a possible bundling with Microsoft Office. Microsoft officials said that a goal of having half of Office users become Visio users "would be a worthy target for us, and one we don't think is unachievable."
If Microsoft is going target existing Office users for its new Visio product lines, does that also include the possibility of Macintosh Office users, as none of the Visio products currently runs on the Macintosh platform? Microsoft admits that Visio's product line fills in some holes in their Office products. Whether or not they bundle Visio's applications with Office remains unclear at this point, as Microsoft's own statements remain vague as to the true intentions behind this acquisition. Microsoft's Real Motives for Visio? While Microsoft says one thing we are all very familiar with this process of hearing one thing when they mean another. You bet there are also some pretty good reasons why the Redmond company would want Visio under their control. Long term, Visio may be an important strategic move for the company. But why? Readers from the ZDNet 'Talkback' column had some possible suggestions why Microsoft would want Visio. Here are a few of the theories:
As one 'Talkback' reader put it: "I wonder which CAD package will run better under Windows2000, IntelliCAD or AutoCAD?" Now that's a very good question!
Closing Comments: Will an MS IntelliCAD rule over AutoDesk? There are a few very important questions here. One of them concerns the possibility that if Microsoft's intentions are to leverage the Visio product lines' strength in business communication graphics and technical documents -- all via a bundling with Office -- then does that not mean there is a reasonably good chance that some of those products may be bundled with the Macintosh version of Office as well? Yes and no. Microsoft promised Office for the Macintosh until 2003 in their historic deal with Apple and Steve Jobs back in 1997. However, that deal likely only pertained to the core products of Office, not any special bundling packages. There is a difference between integration into Office and bundling. There will likely be a bundling of Visio products with Office for Windows sometime in early 2000. A true integration may not occur for many years later. And a Macintosh integration with Visio products may or may not happen at that time. A lot may depend on Apple's relationship with Microsoft at that time.
The other important question concerns the Visio IntelliCAD product. Now with Microsoft in the CAD market how will the CAD landscape change? Will AutoCAD eventually lose its hegemony to an MS IntelliCAD? After all, whenever Microsoft enters a market segment they don't just enter to be a player in the market and have competitive fun and make money, they enter to own the market for themselves, squashing every player that competes with them starting usually with their toughest rival. Microsoft's toughest rival in the CAD market will be AutoDesk and there are a number of interesting concerns and implications for Microsoft's entry in the CAD world. We will be getting into those in a future article soon, so come back often.
Other Architosh News Mac CAD News: UK "Road Show" for ArchiCAD, object-technology [20] DenebaCAD 2.0: Mac-only CAD program goes cross-platform [20] Survey Preview: Half of all Architosh readers are Architects [14] New Advanced CAD program from BOA Research [10]
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