Autodesk's Second Quarter 2005 Earnings
reprinted by permission of Ralph Grabowski, editor
WorldCAD
Access
August 24, 2004
"We are a highly-tuned product machine," exclaimed CEO Carol
Bartz at Autodesk's earnings conference call last week. This
year's emphasis is on "Quick ROI" (return on investment),
because companies now need to be convinced that new purchases
will result in increased profits.
Net revenues were up 32% over a year ago, to US$280 million.
The next quarter, however, is predicted to be flat: this is good
news, because Q3 apparently is historically down. Subscription
revenue is now 16%; the aim is to reach 25%.
ADT was up over 70% over the previous year; sales increase
for Revit was not reported. Seats of LT increased by 27% over
last year, while revenues from AutoCAD increased 54%. (Notice
the mix of units, "seats" and "revenues," which means Autodesk
is cherry picking the best results.) Upgrades sales to AutoCAD
2005 are better than any other upgrade.
Autodesk continues to claim that it is "uniquely positioned
to provide open, secure file format" for sharing and
transmitting drawings. They're talking about DWF (design Web
format), for which they claim 3.5 million users. That's based on
downloads of DWF Viewer, a free product, and one that I've
downloaded a couple of times, but don't use much.
A financial analyst asked if discounts and rebates will
continue. Answer: There is always room for marketing and
stimulating customers to buy.
The company has $572 million in the bank and no debt; it
bought back 1.7 million shares. Perhaps not good news for
employees is that the company is increasing the number of R&D
(research and development) positions off-shore.
For the year 2005, expect to see improvements to 3D across
all divisions, as well as enhancements to PLM (product lifecycle
management). The next version of AutoCAD (2006?) is scheduled to
ship in March; perhaps it too will have enhancements to its 3D.
About the Author
Ralph Grabowski is
an editor at upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. (previously known as
XYZ Publishing, Ltd.). Ralph is the author of 60 books and
several hundred articles for dozens magazines and newsletters
about CAD, graphics, and the Internet.
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