It’s said that all good things must come to an end, and last week at Autodesk, they did, with the resignation of Carl Bass, Autodesk’s President and CEO.
While at SOLDIWORKS World last week, I received an early morning email from an Autodesk spokesperson that the company was announcing that Carl Bass had decided to step down from his role as President and CEO. “With our subscription and cloud business well underway, Carl and the board have determined that now is the right time for Carl to step aside and let someone else guide the company into its next phase,” said the spokesperson.
San Francisco is always a great destination, but even more so when the weather is sunny and warm as it was this week while we attended the REAL 2015 Summit, Autodesk’s initial foray into making sense of a term it coined – reality computing. In Autodesk’s vernacular, creating data is what ultimately is used to create reality, but more about what that actually means later.
REAL 2015 was nothing like any company-sponsored event I had ever attended. It was all about 3D capture (scanning/sensing), computing (modeling), and creating (additive/subtractive manufacturing). It was more like a sophisticated maker faire than a traditional trade show. I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical about coming to REAL 2015, thinking it was going to be a 2 ½ day Autodesk sales pitch/advertisement to a captive audience, but was pleasantly surprised that it was nothing of the sort, and was more analogous to a TEDx event, which is a very good thing.
Capture was put into the context of sensing that is becoming ever more ubiquitous (think smartphone cameras); Compute was about the cloud, mobility, social media, and analytics; and Create was about the increase of accessible fabrication. These three branches were talked about going from feasible to transformational, as well as Autodesk’s initiative as a company of then transforming implications to applications.
Last week we were at the Venetian in Las Vegas for what has to be the biggest spectacle in the CAD business — Autodesk University. While other cities could handle the crowd and serve as venues for AU, Las Vegas has been the destination for the annual event for a long time. Vegas is big, bold, easy to get to, and just a lot of fun to be around, even if you’re not into the “Vegas Lifestyle” — gambling, smoking, etc.
AU takes place at an odd time of year because it immediately follows Thanksgiving and is about four to five months prior to the new versions of Autodesk products being released. That said, though, there are always interesting product announcements made at AU.
Autodesk President and CEO, Carl Bass, led a conversation about “Engineering the Future” for the manufacturing industry at Develop3D LIVE 2013.
In a keynote address, Bass demonstrated how a series of major technology trends are shaping the way product designers and engineers work, and how these trends paved the way for Autodesk to create its cloud-based design platform Autodesk 360, which has been accessed by nearly 15 million users since September 2011.
Additionally, Bass announced that pricing for Autodesk Fusion 360, Autodesk’s comprehensive cloud-based 3D CAD offering, will range from $25 to $200 per user, per month. Originally unveiled at Autodesk University 2012, the cloud technology behind Autodesk Fusion 360 offers universal access where design data is the center of the design process. It also supports an open design environment, allowing designers to incorporate and modify CAD data from virtually any source and share it.
Carl discusses the Cloud and how it is transforming design:
In the following video, Carl discusses how Autodesk is solving tough design problems with Fusion 360, and provides examples of how Fusion 360 provides designers and engineers with clear choices on not only what they want to use, but also how they can buy it, and what it costs.
This is interesting news because I’m about to go hands-on with Autodesk Fusion 360. I’ll tell you how it goes.
