Continued from page 1
Why Now and Why AutoCAD
For over a decade Architosh alone has tracked the desire and dismissal of AutoCAD on the Mac. It has been the number one item our readers have been drawn to request, debate and discuss for ten years. Earlier in the decade we published an in-depth survey report with Cyon Research on AutoCAD on the Mac. We had collected more than 5000 responses over several years. Autodesk itself has been collecting interest too.
Still, no AutoCAD for Mac!
The interest in AutoCAD for Mac started strongly with the architecture crowd over ten years ago but today we can safely say that interest with that group has swung over to Autodesk Revit. Perhaps that is why Autodesk appears ready to release a native version of AutoCAD now…it doesn’t strategically matter all that much! But matter in what way?
For years pundits, insiders and users (Apple’s and Autodesk’s) have speculated why the company was refusing (or excusing…depending on how you look at it) to produce a native version of AutoCAD for Mac. A leading theory was because Autodesk and Apple compete head to head for the same coveted customers: creatives!
The theory goes, if Autodesk helped Apple become too popular and allow the Mac market to take off Apple might eventually decide to enter the design software market itself. This way, if Apple was still lingering with its Mac market share Autodesk’s design software market was safe from a hostile competitive threat from a looming Jobs & Co. While the Mac market lingered or grew at tiny percentages Autodesk went on to quadruple its revenues and expand its product portfolio by leaps and bounds.
The Double Halo-Effect
But a looming Jobs & Co. did emerge after all. While Autodesk was growing so too was Apple, by even larger factors. It just didn’t grow by way of the Mac. Instead, Apple’s Mac division continues to expand at a steadily growing rate due to “halo-effects” caused by its smash-hit products.
While the first smash hit was the iPod it really wasn’t until the iPhone that Apple had a real engine driver for the Mac. Now with the iPad–which looks to be an even bigger hit than the iPhone (hard to imagine, isn’t it?) — Apple’s Mac division seems poised for continued expansion at the benefit of a double Halo-Effect.
In a recent Bloomberg feature piece on Autodesk CEO Carl Bass it appears that the company is getting something that many companies are still not getting. And that is: people want simple tools that are powerful. Apple is making money hand over fist with products, software and services that are at heart, simple.
So too is Google and many other successful newcomers.
In the Bloomberg piece Bass says that he is using Autodesk products himself. Beyond their use in his wood shop studio he is providing critical feedback (Steve Jobs-style) to his software teams. He questions why his own products take 40 minutes to install and laments the fact that his $5000 software doesn’t look as good as a $49 video game.
Take a look again at those AutoCAD Sledgehammer screen shots and the video. What do really see going on here?
Apple-Like
What we see is a product that is clueing into Apple’s way of doing things. We see Apple’s Multi-touch (itself a state-of-the-Art on where Apple is steering simplicity) and we see a much more attractive user-interface with its stylish dark toolbar palettes. In other words we see Carl Bass in Sledgehammer.
The Bloomberg article is right about one thing too. Carol Bartz is a hard act to follow. Bass probably can’t grow the company as much as she did, but he can make it incredibly cooler and still grow it quite a bit. And he can do that by attaching himself to Jobs & Co. and their continued innovation train.
So back to that question of why now and why AutoCAD. The answer is simple. We just wonder why it took them so long.
[Editor’s note: some key comments on this story on below in the Comments area.]
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Ralph Grabowski wrote this about AutoCAD on the Mac here:
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/italian-mac-site-posts-screen-grabs-video-of-autocad-2011-running-on-mac-os-x.html
Ralph believes the images are fake. His best argument point is the language situation. Why would Autodesk have a beta in Italian when they historically handle localization after a product is out of beta? That is a good question. And Ralph would know about this far more than I would. But there is an answer.
Autodesk likely built AutoCAD Sledgehammer with Xcode and is using the same “installer technology” that Apple uses for its own software. These installers automatically take on the Finder’s language choice. I ran a test myself. Grabbing the first software box near me (I have lots of software near me!!) I popped in a leading Mac CAD installation disk. The installer didn’t look like the typical installers that come with Apple’s tools and many others, nor the format used by Autodesk. Sure enough, the language did not change to Italian either, after my Finder was set that way. Then I tried some Apple software and another software all produced by Xcode. Sure enough the Finder’s Italian language designation changed the installer’s language to match even though the app installed only in English.
So this is likely why we have an installer in Italian but the program’s menus in the screen shots are all in English. Though I don’t know this factually, I think this is the default installer technology that ships with Apple’s development environment (Xcode, et al). You can see in this image here over at MacRumors that the Mac being used has its Finder set to Italian.
http://images.macrumors.com/article/2010/05/22/104512-autocadbeta1b_800.jpg
That image BTW shows the start-up screen, which has a similar size to the installer but it not a part of it thus it would be in English only as the beta appears to be only in English as Ralph mentioned.
Apple has quadrupled the amount of Mac computers it sells each year compared to ten years ago when OS X was going to save Apple’s Mac platform. I remember the days when shipping 750,000 units per quarter was typical. Now north of 3 million units per quarter, Apple is really just getting going with Mac sales as both the iPhone and iPad will continue to drive up Mac sales incrementally via a double-halo effect. I expect Apple (at its current growth rates) will surpass 15 million Macs per year by 2012/13. That safely means 45 million active Macs out in the wild that are relatively new-ish at under 3 years of age. Count another 20 million Macs that are between ages 3+ and 5 years of age old and you have a vastly larger mac eco-system to sell applications into then ten years ago (and growing at that).
Simply put the size of the Mac platform is getting so large that it simply cannot be ignored.
This is obviously going to have a major impact on the computer aided design community- some of whom are the most conservative people I have met (especially the engineering variety). I remember having a heated debate with one of my engineering colleagues while studying for my bachelors degree, about the power and solidity of the Mac compared to Windows. This will be the first blow that wipes the smirk off their faces. The second blow will be the announcement that Apple are now worth more than Microsoft ($3billion more in fact), according to Cleve Nettles on the 9to5Mac blog. (http://www.9to5mac.com/AAPL-MSFT-345345332). I would safety conclude that this factor, and the recent success of the iPad and the iPhone, would be a major contributing factor to Autodesk’s sudden change of heart.
Apple has quadrupled the amount of Mac computers it sells each year compared to ten years ago when OS X was going to save Apple’s Mac platform. I remember the days when shipping 750,000 units per quarter was typical. Now north of 3 million units per quarter, Apple is really just getting going with Mac sales as both the iPhone and iPad will continue to drive up Mac sales incrementally via a double-halo effect. I expect Apple (at its current growth rates) will surpass 15 million Macs per year by 2012/13. That safely means 45 million active Macs out in the wild that are relatively new-ish at under 3 years of age. Count another 20 million Macs that are between ages 3+ and 5 years of age old and you have a vastly larger mac eco-system to sell applications into then ten years ago (and growing at that).
Simply put the size of the Mac platform is getting so large that it simply cannot be ignored.
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