Autodesk

Infobox Company
company_name = Autodesk, Inc.
company_
company_type = Public (nasdaq|ADSK)
foundation = Mill Valley, California, USA (1982)
location = San Rafael, California, USA
key_people = John Walker, Founder Carol Bartz, Executive Chairman Carl Bass, President and CEO
industry = CAD/CAM Software [http://www.hoovers.com/autodesk/--ID__12689--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml]
products = [http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=8909451 See complete listing.]
revenue = profit $1.840 billion USD (FY 2007)
net_income = profit $289.7 million USD (FY 2007)
num_employees = 7,300 (2008)cite web |url=http://zenobank.com/index.php?symbol=ADSK&page=quotesearch |title=Company Profile for Autodesk Inc (ADSK) |accessdate=2008-10-03]
homepage = [http://www.autodesk.com/ www.autodesk.com]

Autodesk, Inc. (nasdaq|ADSK) is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 2D and 3D design software for use in architecture, engineering and building construction, manufacturing, and media and entertainment. Autodesk was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a co-author of early versions of the company's flagship CAD software product, AutoCAD, and twelve other co-founders. It is headquartered in San Rafael, California.

Autodesk has arguably become best-known due to its flagship computer-aided design software AutoCAD. Today, Autodesk is the world’s largest design software company, with more than 9 million users [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=9493782|title=Autodesk - Press Room - Corporate Information|publisher=Autodesk|date=August 2008] throughout the world, and the company was recently named number 25 on "Fast Company's" list of "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies." [cite web|url=http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/123/the-worlds-most-innovative-companies.html?page=0%2C7|title=The World's Most Innovative Companies|publisher=Fast Company|date=March 2008]

Autodesk has developed a broad portfolio of digital prototyping solutions [cite web|url=http://www.autodesk.com/digitalprototyping|title=Autodesk - Digital Prototyping|publisher=Autodesk|date=2008] to help users visualize, simulate, and analyze real-world performance throughout the design process. The company also provides digital media creation and management software across all media and entertainment disciplines, from film and television visual effects, color grading, and editing to animation, game development, and design visualization. [cite web|url=http://www.autodesk.com/mediaandentertainment|title=Autodesk - Media & Entertainment|publisher=Autodesk|date=2008]

Organization

Autodesk is divided into four industry-specific business divisions: "Manufacturing Solutions" (MSD), the "Architecture, Engineering & Construction" (AEC), the "Media and Entertainment Division" (M&E), and "Platform Solutions & Emerging Business" (PSEB), which includes geospatial and plant solutions, content and search, and extended design as well as Autodesk Labs. Autodesk also has a services group, Autodesk Consulting, and the "Location Based Services Division" (LBS).

Products

The "Platform Solutions and Emerging Business" division develops and manages Autodesk's flagship product, AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Autodesk's Geospatial solutions (AutoCAD Map3D, AutoCAD MapGuide Enterprise, etc), Plant solutions (AutoCAD P&ID), Autodesk Impression, Extended Design offerings such as Design Review, Content and Search solutions, Autodesk Labs, and Global Engineering.

The "Manufacturing Solutions Division" develops and manages Autodesk Inventor Series, Autodesk Inventor Professional, AutoCAD Mechanical and Autodesk Vault.

The "Architecture Engineering and Construction" Solutions division develops and manages AutoCAD Architecture (Old name - Architectural Desktop), AutoCAD MEP (Old name - Autodesk Building Systems), Revit Architecture (Old name - Revit Building), Revit Structure, Revit MEP (Old name - Revit Systems), and AutoCAD Civil 3D. The division also develops and manages the collaborative project management (CPM) solutions, Buzzsaw and Constructware, the recently acquired NavisWorks software tools, and analysis tools for sustainable design including Autodesk Green Building Studio and Autodesk Ecotect.

The principal product offerings from the Media and Entertainment Division are Maya, 3ds max, "Discreet Inferno", "Discreet Flame", "Discreet Fire", "Discreet Flint", "Discreet Smoke", "Toxik" and "Lustre". These Academy Award winning products are covered on a dedicated page for the Media and Entertainment Division.

Other products include Autosketch, Autodesk Subscription Program and Autodesk LocationLogic.

Discontinued Products

From time to time Autodesk discontinues some of the products in their portfolio. Some of Autodesk's "retired" products are listed here:

* Volo View was a web-enabled review and markup tool from Autodesk for engineering data, including support for Autodesk’s DWG, DXF, and DWF formats. Volo View enabled design teams to communicate ideas and review designs without access to AutoCAD software. Autodesk discontinued sales of Volo View on May 1, 2005. The latest version of the software, Volo View 3, worked with the following file formats: AutoCAD 2004, DWG and DXF; Design Web Format (DWF 6); Autodesk Inventor 7 IPT, IAM, and IDW and raster files. The functionality of this product is largely replaced by Autodesk Design Review. Autodesk has also released a free product called DWG TrueView. This product enables users to view and plot AutoCAD DWG and DXF files, and to publish these same files to the DWF file format.

* Autodesk Animator Pro (DOS) and Autodesk Animator Studio (Windows) were products designed for cell based animation produced between the early to mid 1990s. At the time Autodesk was also advertising an Autodesk Media product similar in description to Macromedia's Director but this product was never released to the public.

* Cyberspace by Autodesk was an early real-time 3D environment capable of producing basic phong shaded walkthroughs of DXF format models in "realtime". No textures were supported, and the system was able to support a maximum DXF model size of around 35 KB.Fact|date=October 2007 A popular demo model of the Parthenon in Greece was shown around the US in a tour of the portable demo system - complete with virtual reality goggles.

History

Autodesk's first notable product was AutoCAD, a CAD application designed to run on the systems known as "microcomputers" at the time, including those running the 8-bit CP/M operating system and two of the new 16-bit systems, the Victor 9000 and the IBM Personal Computer (PC). This CAD tool allowed users to create detailed technical drawings, and was affordable to many smaller design, engineering, and architecture companies.

Release 2.1 of AutoCAD, released in 1986, included AutoLisp, a built-in Lisp interpreter initially based on XLISP. [ [http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/section2_115_4.html AutoCAD Major Feature Release History ] ] This opened the door for third party developers to extend AutoCAD's functionality, to address a wide range of vertical markets - strengthening AutoCAD's market penetration.

Subsequent to AutoCAD Release 12, the company stopped supporting the Unix environment and the Apple Macintosh platform. After AutoCAD Release 14, first shipped in 1997, Autodesk discontinued development under MS-DOS, and focused exclusively on Microsoft Windows.

AutoCAD has grown to become the most widely used CAD program for 2D non-specialized applications.Fact|date=May 2008 The native file formats written by AutoCAD, DXF and DWG, are also widely used for CAD data interoperability.

In the early 1990s, with the purchase of Softdesk in 1996, Autodesk started to develop specialty versions of AutoCAD, targeted to broad industry segments, including architecture, civil engineering, and manufacturing. Since the late 1990s, the company has added a number of significant non-AutoCAD-based products, including Revit, a parametric building modeling application (acquired in 2002, from Massachusetts-based Revit Technologies for $133 million), and Inventor, an internally developed parametric mechanical design CAD application.

Over the last few years Autodesk has pursued a strategy of acquisitions:

* On January 10, 2006, Autodesk acquired Alias, with its automotive styling and digital content creation applications, for $197 million USD. [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5970886&siteID=123112 |accessdate=2008-05-20 |title=Autodesk & Alias |date=2006-03-12]

* On August 6, 2007, Autodesk announced the acquisition of Skymatter Inc, developer of Mudbox. [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=9931455&siteID=123112|title=Autodesk Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Skymatter, Makers of Mudbox 3D Brush-based Modeling Software.|publisher=Autodesk|date=6 August 2007]

* On August 20, 2007, Autodesk announced that it has completed the acquisition of technology and product assets of Opticore AB, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=11267224
accessdate=2008-05-20 |title=Autodesk Completes Acquisition of Opticore AB |date=2007-08-20 ] Opticore is specialized in real time visualisation primarily for the carmakers industry. By this time Autodesk ranks 12th on the list of largest software companies in the world (2007). [ "Software Top 100": [http://www.softwaretop100.org "The World's Largest Software Companies"] ]

* On August 28, 2007, Autodesk announced the acquisition of California-based PlassoTech, developers of CAE applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. [cite web|url=http://news.taume.com/World-Business/Business-Finance/Autodesk-Acquires-PlassoTech-2338|title=Autodesk Acquires PlassoTech |publisher=Taume News|date=28 August 2007]

* On November 25, 2007, Autodesk announced the intent to acquire Robobat, a France-based developer of structural engineering analysis applications. The acquisition was completed on January 15, 2008. [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=10309929&linkID=10510362|title=Autodesk Announces Intent to Acquire Robobat|publisher=Autodesk|date=25 November 2007] [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=10466421&siteID=123112|title=Autodesk Completes Acquisition of Robobat|publisher=Autodesk|date=15 January 2008]

* On May 1, 2008, Autodesk announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Moldflow Corporation, a leading provider of injection molding simulation software. [cite web|url=http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/view/6/Autodesk_Announces_Intent_2/ |accessdate=2008-05-20 |title=Autodesk Announces Intent to Acquire Moldflow |date=2008-05-01]

* On May 7, 2008, Autodesk announced that it has completed the acquisition of Kynogon SA, the privately held maker of Kynapse artificial intelligence middleware. [cite web
url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=10792202
accessdate=2008-05-20
title=Autodesk Completes Acquisition of Kynogon SA
date=2008-05-07] Paris-based Kynogon specialized in video game middleware and simulation.

* The same day, Autodesk also announced the acquisition of REALVIZ S.A.. [cite web|url=http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=11247884&siteID=123112
accessdate=2008-05-20
title=Autodesk Acquires Assets of REALVIZ, Developer of Image-Based Content Creation Software
date=2008-05-07] REALVIZ was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France. REALVIZ's flagship products are "Stitcher" software for the creation of panoramas and 360 degree virtual tours, and "ImageModeler" software to produce 3D models from photographs.

* On June 26, 2008, a press release announced the acquisition of Square One Research and its flagship product, Ecotect. [cite web|url=http://pressreleases.autodesk.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=433%3C%2Ftd%3E
accessdate=2008-07-03
title=Autodesk Enhances Sustainable Design Capabilities With Acquisitions of Ecotect and Green Building Studio Analysis Tools
date=2008-06-26]

Those numerous acquisition seems to be a trend in the strategy of Autodesk : buy small- to medium-sized software companies around the world both to get their very specific know-how and to avoid the rise of potential future competitors.Fact|date=May 2008

Autodesk's products compete against products from several companies, including MicroStation from Bentley Systems, VectorWorks from Nemetschek, ArchiCAD from Graphisoft, SolidWorks, owned by Dassault Systemes, Solid Edge from Siemens UGS PLM Software, 12d Model, owned by 12d Solutions, Pro/E from PTC, and SDS/2 owned by Design Data.

ee also

*AutoCAD
*Autodesk Developer Network
*Digital Prototyping

References

External links

* [http://www.autodesk.com/ Autodesk Official site]
* [http://blogs.autodesk.com Autodesk Blogs]
* [http://www.augi.com AUGI Autodesk User Group International]
* [http://myfeedback.autodesk.com All Autodesk product usability, research, and beta testing]
* [http://labs.autodesk.com/ Autodesk Labs]
* [http://www.dspdimension.com/admin/autodesk-releases-new-products-using-dirac/ Autodesk Partners With Leading Audio Technology Provider]
* [http://www.augi.com Autodesk Product-based Peer-to-Peer User Community]
* [http://students.autodesk.com/ Autodesk Student Community]
* [http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_36.html Early AutoCAD information]
* [http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile The Autodesk File, a History of Autodesk]
* [http://myfeedback.autodesk.com/history/area51.htm Autodesk and AutoCAD History Site]
* [http://www.autodesk.com/civil3d AutoCAD Civil 3D's Official Page]
* [http://www.Moldflow.com/ Autodesk Moldflow, Injection Molding Simulation]