The Best (and the worst) of the CAD Industry 2004

The voting in our office results in this: A somewhat irreverent look at 2004 at what the CAD/PLM and AEC industries brought us.
Jan 4, 2005

Biggest News in the CAD Industry in 2004: We all agreed that the management buy-out of UGS from EDS earlier in 2004 would either be highly successful...or very painful. It seems that, the endless logo, URL and email changes notwithstanding, Affuso and UGS made a series of right choices.

Biggest Newcomer: Arena made a surprising leap onto our radar screen by offering On-Demand PLM and then having a good gloat every time they implemented at a site already occupied by Agile. While the ‘traditional’ supply chain and ERP vendors are not considered 'pure PLM' yet by the CAD industry, we believe CAD and design-side PLM vendors should develop a healthy paranoia about Arena and its competitors.

Best New Technology: Lattice3D’s XVL technology that allows intelligent 3D data to be repurposed for such things as print and online manuals and instructions, to be shared more easily and be very highly compressed (makes it easier to email). Please note that Lattice3D is a client of ours and we fully believe we are backing the right horse in what will become an aggressive market in 2005.

Best CAD/AEC/PLM Editor of 2004: Ralph Grabowski gets our vote for being swift-of-foot and incredibly productive from his origins many years ago with a simple-format, text-based weekly email newsletter. In the years before, Ralph has collected a huge and influential following, and in 2004 built on that by launching a vibrant and highly visible BLOG – WorldCADAccess (http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/)

Best Print Advertisement for a CAD Company: It has to be Autodesk’s ‘Viagra’ ad. Featured briefly in a few CAD magazines, this ad then swiftly disappeared. We want it back! (We will ask Autodesk if we can display a copy sometime soon)

Worst Ad: Out of all the ads, not one stood out as the worst...they were all horrible. The team couldn’t select just one when 99% of engineering software ads are awful. How many ads of computer monitors, plotters, drawings or models do we have to see? Let’s try for some innovative ideas. What happened to creativity?

Best Event: The team differs on this, but we have to mention COFES for being at its best and Autodesk University for totally busting all previous attendance records. Kudos to both!

Best Press Release: There is no such thing. Everyone can still do a lot better.

Worst Press Release: Here’s where we could not agree – equal votes for two press releases means we have to feature both.

First: BE Award Winner McCormick Taylor Named One of the Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania Read it here: http://go.cadwire.net/?36804,1,1

Our response – no one cares! And especially not about the best place to work in PA. I told this to a few people at Bentley, but they told me I am a grouch (No surprise there!)

Next: Logitech Unveils Laser Cordless Mouse
Dr. Joel Orr first spotted this one and decided to use it for commentary on CADwire.net (A Cyon Research Web site.) You can see both his commentary and click through to the press release at: http://www.cadwire.net/commentary/?Id=818

Our thoughts – this press release is 1,274 words long! (Well, give or take a few.) Our point of view is that it is truly a feat to create that many words about a cordless mouse, and, while the invention is probably sweet, most of us nodded off by about the 64th word. One thing we always try and remember about the press is that quite a few of them already suffer ADHD and those that don’t will not normally spend more than 2 minutes reading an announcement.

Worst News: Joe Greco. Putting all levity to one side…I was on the phone with Joe discussing CAD Society while he waited for his plane to Hawaii. He died in Hawaii of a heart attack. Now I will never get to talk to him again. All we have are good memories of a gentle man who knew his stuff and who displayed constant patience with everyone. You are much missed, Joe.

Rachael Dalton-Taggart

Ken Feitz

Becky Carter

Greg Smith

Ken Taggart

Comments

[Racer X]

Joe was a great guy!
Rest in Peace.

Instead of 'Worst News' you should call it:

'Best Lifetime Contribution'

Let us remember Joe on a positive note.

[Florida Vacation]

I found this site to be very helpful and very interesting. I look forward to any more information that will be added in the future. Thanks Again.