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Executive Reorganization Puts Autodesk on a New Path
Vertical Groups Unifying Under Carl Bass
by MARTYN DAY, editor, CADserver
 SAN RAFAEL, California,
February 13, 2002 - While Autodesk's recent press
release on three executive appointments may have seemed
innocuous enough, the decision to combine the product
development and sales groups into a single business unit could
indicate new avenues of development strategy by Autodesk.
The major news is that ex-CTO Carl Bass has been placed back
near the center of Autodesk events once again, having spent two
years being CEO of Autodesk's first Dot Com misadventure,
Buzzsaw, which was spun off, then spun-in. Thanks to Autodesk's
standing, Buzzsaw had a credible stab at the amazingly
competitive but highly elusive, 'Project Hosting' market from
which adequate revenues failed to materialize. After running out
of cash, Autodesk bought back the assets of Buzzsaw to
incorporate it into its project suite and Bass re-joined as
chief strategy officer.
Bass will now be responsible the 'new' Design Solutions
Division (DSD), which will combine manufacturing, geographic
information systems, and building industry product groups. I
understand that the vertical VP's, Phil Bernstein (AEC and
Infrastructure) Larry Diamond (GIS) and Robert 'Buzz' Kross
(MCAD) all now report to Bass.
From my previous talks with Autodesk executives, it seemed
that the vertical divisions of Autodesk were going their
separate ways, the mechanical team was departing from AutoCAD as
its core development platform (choosing to develop a new 'from
ground-up modeler, Inventor) and the reins of AutoCAD
development were handed over to the AEC development team. In
fact, meeting Bernstein just before Christmas, it was clear that
he was in charge of Architectural Desktop (ADT) and even more
building products, AutoCAD and LT development, as well as the
marketing of Viz. As the majority of architects are 2D users
and, as a recent Business Advantage UK poll suggested, 70% of
architects are not interested in moving to a 3D solution,
perhaps this previous arrangement made some sense.
The new structure takes AutoCAD and LT away from the AEC team
into the newly formed Platform Technology Group, headed up by
John Sanders. Sanders headed up the 'old' Design Solutions
Division. An Autodesk representative told me that "Since
these products are horizontal in nature (e.g., are used as
platforms in industries other than AEC as well), we decided that
it made sense organizationally to have a separate group focusing
exclusively on these issues." Obviously the AEC team will
work closely with this new group.
Without being swamped by nearly all the products in
Autodesk's portfolio to develop, the move will free up the AEC
team's time to devote to AEC development. In my last meeting
with Bernstein, he alluded to the fact that his team is already
mapping out the next generation of Single Building Modelers.
Bernstein commented: "It's hard to predict but we have
always thought of ADT as a bridging mechanism, in much the same
way that MDT was a bridge to Inventor. It's a way of starting to
change the way people think about things but whether it's going
to last 3 years, 5 years of 10 years is something we are trying
to figure out at this very minute."
The next thing to note is that Autodesk has focused the
product, sales and marketing functions towards Bass. Doug May
becomes vice president worldwide sales for Design Solutions,
reporting to Bass. May will be responsible for all geographic
regions, including direct and indirect channels. So, sales will
report into the same person as product development, hopefully
creating better synergy and feedback within the organization. In
short, Autodesk's Design business has gone from a number of
'fiefdoms' into a Kingdom. Oddly enough, pre-R13, Bass was the
original catalyst to Autodesk splitting into vertical groups,
which had its positive, as well as negative results. Now Bass
returns in a unifying role.
The position of the current CTO, Scott Borduin, stays
unchanged, although just how Bass (an ex-CTO) and Borduin's
positions interface is not yet clear. An Autodesk representative
stated that "Carl oversees the entire DSD organization
whereas Scott provides company-wide leadership on technology
issues." With Bass having 'broader administrative
responsibilities'.
Conclusion
At the moment things are looking good at Autodesk, the share
price is near an all-time high and the company is being rewarded
for good sales, arriving late enough to miss the bullets at the
dot com massacre. Autodesk also has 'things' Wall Street now
likes for a change; they are called 'market leadership', 'mixed
products' and 'a channel'. The 'upgrade from R14 or lose your
right to upgrade for ever' 'deal' appears to have gone well and
with such a massive potential for subscription revenue, it's no
wonder the stock is doing well. So why have a reorganization
now?
My personal thoughts are that the AEC division had too much
on their plate and it's clear to me that they have a lot of work
to do on ADT and at the same time have to develop something else
other than ADT, which is going to take years and lot of
resources. CEO Carol Bartz promised 'No more big Releases', with
the recent R14 'obit' (Autodesk talk for retiring an old release
of AutoCAD) possibly being to be the last major 'R' to be phased
out. AutoCAD and vertical product functionality will be streamed
via a subscription model with yearly collections of extra
functionality available for those on subscription. This change
in development and sales had to be reflected internally and to
get the subscription revenue from AutoCAD it's essential that a
dedicated team squeezes out the enhancements and horizontal
functionality in an accountable manner - to provide the goods on
time. Oddly enough, Autodesk spent the best part of the nineties
trying to deny that most of its revenue came from one cash cow,
namely AutoCAD or products built on top of it. The vast
subscription revenue potential from 4 million or so customers
has put AutoCAD back in the spotlight, where it deserves its own
development team once more. It will be interesting to see how
AutoCAD expands in this environment, as it is an extremely
mature product and there's precious little else that can be put
inside it. In my mind, it has won the battle of the 2D desktops
and it's about time for it to be put in maintenance mode.
From my perspective, while the dot com craziness eventually
led to AutoCAD features being developed to please more people in
Wall Street than in the installed base, I am happy to see sales
reporting into a tighter structure, hopefully feeding back
customer needs direct to the development teams (In my view,
AutoCAD User Group wish-lists have had their day). With an
increasing number of sales from Autodesk going direct to the
larger institutions, a closer alignment of sales, marketing and
development is also essential, companies like PTC and Dassault
have shown the way.
I'm guessing that Bass's job after his three years out is to
break down the walls that may have built up in the
verticalization process, tighten up the operation and, I hope,
make the structure more accountable to customers. As a passing
thought, it also strikes me that the Design Solutions business
may now appear one step removed from the Autodesk 'nobility',
appearing as a self contained business unit, like that of
Discreet.
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