On Sun, 2004-11-28 at 12:19, Ken Elliott wrote:
> Not exactly.
There are other details, I know. For brievity, I did not go into
everything. Thank you for doing so.
> David C. Arnold, CEO of Softdesk,
I think I overstated something, thank you for correcting.
[ BTW, wasn't Mr. Arnold a former Autodesk employee? ]
It was to my understanding that Softdesk was an Autodesk partner and
reseller. But 3 (?) Autodesk developers defected to Softdesk who
realized they could make far more money. Without NDAs, they were free
to develop a clone.
I sure wish I could find the interview from years back. It talked about
how they were able to develop such a compatible DWG program, especially
since they were former Autodesk employees. The lack of a NDA was the
reason.**
> decided he needed an alternative to AutoCAD and started a secret project
> to build an AutoCAD clone, thus cutting out Autodesk. Autodesk tried
> to purchase Softdesk and kill the project. But the FTC stepped in and
> wouldn't allow the Softdesk sale to take place unless Autodesk sold
> IntelliCAD.
Correct.
And it when to another party before Visio bought them, then Microsoft.
> Autodesk committed to Win32 and VBA before the IntelliCAD project had
> started. They needed to completely rewrite the core, which was started in
> Release 13, and completed in AutoCAD 2000. Faced with such small revenue
> from Mac and Unix sales, and growing interest in NT workstations, Autodesk
> committed to Win32 for the rewrite.
Yes, there was collaboration going on between Microsoft and Autodesk
before IntelliCAD. The Win32/VBA angle was being explored in
development. As you pointed out, a lot of the UNIX guys had left.**
But what really killed Autodesk's sales of _all_ non-Win32 versions was
when Microsoft gets a stake in something. Until then, you could still
purchase non-Win32 versions. At least the Mac version.
Because that's the first thing that happens when Microsoft gains a
foothold. Anything non-Win32 goes. It's why Best Buy stopped selling
anything Mac several years ago once Microsoft gained a minority stake.
I know several of the distributors, it's not because of lack of sales.
> AutoLisp was never dumped and still exists in AutoCAD 2005.
I meant "dumped at the primary script."
-- Bryan
**NOTE: Were not some of the former Autodesk developers who came over
to IntelliCAD the same ones that were with the company early on and did
not have a NDA? Again, I need to find that old interview.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- Subtotal Cost of Ownership (SCO) for Windows being less than Linux Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) assumes experts for the former, costly retraining for the latter, omitted "software assurance" costs in compatible desktop OS/apps for the former, no free/legacy reuse for latter, and no basic security, patch or downtime comparison at all.----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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