Autodesk Pre-announces Inventor Professional 7reprinted by permission of Ralph Grabowski, editor
May 26, 2003 Autodesk pre-announces that it will ship a "higher-priced" version of Inventor in June, called Autodesk Inventor Professional 7. It's targeted at machine design, handling 3D piping, 3D tubing, and electromechanical design, and reading in PCB [printed circuit board] layouts. An update later in the year adds wire harness and cable design, and schematic design. When asked about the price, CEO Carol Bartz would not reveal it, other than to say that it won't be "$500 per module." The idea is to "up-sell," to increase revenues by selling a more expensive edition of Inventor, just as Dassault Systemes has its more-expensive SolidWorks Office package. Autodesk wants make sure potential customers can't say, "Inventor can't do something." The aim, Ms Bartz says, is to make Inventor as powerful as Pro/E and CATIA 5, with the exception of car bodies and airframes -- "but everything else." From the lack of "Series" in the name, I am guessing that AIP7 will exclude AutoCAD 2004 and Mechanical Desktop. Autodesk's CEO was pleased to report that Autodesk Inventor Series sold 7,300 commercial seats last quarter (ending 30 April), while nearest competitor SolidWorks managed just 6,043. The comments were made during Autodesk's Q1 conference call. Other items of interest: Ms Bartz did not discourage the analyst who assumed that AutoCAD 2005 will ship next spring, and that AutoCAD 2000 will be killed off this fall (customers no longer have upgrade pricing available). The price of AutoCAD LT will increase again this summer, with pricing different in Europe and Asia-Pacific; by continually increasing the price of LT, Autodesk makes lower-priced competitors like IntelliCAD, VDraft, and FelixCAD more attractive to potential customers. SARS in China will cost the company US$7 million in lost revenue this quarter. Autodesk continues to not provide numbers on its subscription program, but analysts believe it to be 10-12%. 1Q04 revenue was $211 million, up from $195.5 million in the previous quarter, but down from US$229.3 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company hopes Q2 revenues will be between $207 and $212 million. Gene Munster of US Bancorp Piper Jaffray's check of Autodesk dealers, channel found that "customers seem to have little sense of urgency to purchase." This is seen in Autodesk's published numbers for new and upgrade sales of AutoCAD, where the numbers were much better in the quarter _before_ AutoCAD 2004 began shipping. No mention was made of Revit for Mac OS X. More Inventor Articles | 
