“I have long, long been of the opinion, that Apple (AAPL) should take a crack at the enterprise market, and in doing so, it should penetrate through the CAD / PDM niche. Apple’s extremely loyal user base of creative professionals can find a great encore in the industrial designers, mechanical designers, and architects,” Sramana Mitra writes for SeekingAlpha.
“So far, however, Apple did not look strong enough to go after the broad enterprise market. In fact, DNA-wise, I still don’t think they would,” Mitra writes. “However, Graphics and Design related applications are very much in their sweetspot, and CAD is a large enough niche, that an Autodesk-Apple partnership would be just splendid for both players!”
Mitra writes, “And today, boy, does Apple look strong!”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Nathan” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: Autodesk’s last release of AutoCAD for Macintosh was Release 12 in June 1992. From what we hear, AutoCAD has become a morass that’s hopelessly enmeshed with Windows; a total ground-up rewrite would be required for a Mac version of AutoCAD. By the way, Autodesk’s current market value is just $9.37 billion.
A guide to 2D/3D Graphics & Animation software for Apple Macintosh is here.
Related note: Architosh serves a worldwide audience of Macintosh-based CAD/3D and AEC professionals and students: http://www.architosh.com/
Related MacDailyNews article:
Autodesk requests AutoCAD for OS X feedback – May 05, 2003
“Partnership”? Apple should just buy the damn company.
If only AutoDesk would get off their high horse power trip and realize the Mac is not a toy. The problem is the institutional bias there against Macs, but who knows – their stock options trouble seems to be more serious than Apple’s and might involve a change of management that will be seize the day when it comes to an Apple partnership.
VectorWorks is probably the best CAD program for the Macintosh right now.
But YES, we NEED AUTOCAD FOR THE MAC!! DAMMIT, AUTODESK!! BRING YOUR PRODUCT TO THE MACINTOSH ALREADY!
auto desk is the microsoft of the cad industry
bloated unreliable software for “i.t. draftsmen”
they are the last people to partner with. boot-camp if you must
This is one of the most missed apps in the Apple platform. Apple should help fund this development. I doubt that AD would do an entire rewrite for Apple.
Apple should innovate and dominate the CAD/CAM/3D arena with hardware and software.
Bring it down for the rest of us can use.
Imagine the explosion of 3D game worlds and characters that would occur if artists could be artists and not be computer science majors.
And the horrible “gaming cards” Apple uses for it’s computers pales in comparision with the video muscle cards available on the PC side.
WAKE UP APPLE!!!
MTA your missing the point.
The point is, AutoCAD on OS X would sell more Macs.
It makes no sense. Some of there programs are for mac….some not.
i do not care if it is either Revit or Architectural Desktop…Autodesk must bring either to OSX. I think bringing Revit to OSX would be easier than brining Desktop. Desktop is just way to intergrated into windows. Also..from what i hear running Desktop in Bootcamp works good
I’m a big fan of Vectorworks…
It’s got a decnt user base, especially in the entertainment field.
We all us the Spotlight module for Lighting Design. and VW and renderworks for Stage Design.
Cue anectdotal info:
This tour I’m on has 20 or so laptops. 3/4 are Macbook or MacBook Pro’s.
Only custom software is running on 4 windows laptops…
This should have been listed under related articles:
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/ugs_releases_native_product_lifecycle_management_plm_software_for_mac/
We’re a free-lance residential furniture design office and I can tell you that 99% of our client manufacturers use AutoCAD. While there are some other great CAD software apps for the Mac out there–VectorWorks, Canvas and Graphite–if Autodesk were to offer AutoCAD for the Mac again, I’d have a yard sale for the PCs on our network. There is no logical reason for AutoDesk not to support the Mac platform. It would be good for growing their marketshare and obviously great for Apple.
In fact, Bill Gate’s house was designed with a Mac.
Those suggesting a buyout should reconsider: $9.37 Billion for “a morass that’s hopelessly enmeshed with Windows”, plus yet more to make it a viable Mac product. Heck, for that kind of money one could create a “clean sheet” competitor, built to modern programming standards, market the hell out of it, drive Autodesk into “Also Ran” status, and still have plenty of money left.
So would be an Apple ESRI partnership for GIS. GIS technology is an extremely important technology and is used all kinds of industries.
I was using an HP 87 micro using specialized cogo software 1983 through 1987. Then a 286 clone running Autocad 2.4? in 1985. Then moved to the company I work for now and was running on a IIci through release 12 then we transitioned to pcs in 1995 to present now using Map and Land Development Desktop. Now carpal tunnel yet…….
ArchiCad, which has been a long time Mac program, is better than AutoCad anyhow… MacHeads don’t need AutoCad.
This article is dead on, but with the wrong company. SolidWorks is the power player and growth kid on the block. Apple would be wise to scoop them up, costing Apple much less in acquizition costs, while taking chinks out of AutoDesk each year.
This would mean 10 million+ new shiny and highly lucrative Mac Pro’s and MacBook Pro’s sold into the enterprise world. This is the perfect back-door play into corporate desktop for Apple.
AutoCAD is a bloated dinosaur! MiniCAD (now VectorWorks) has always excelled over AutoCAD in its simplicity and speed. Getting involved with AutoDesk would cripple Apple. The only valuable asset AutoDesk has comes from their recent acquisition of Alias|Wavefront and it’s called Maya. Apple would be better off building CAD from the ground up than trying to “fix” AutoCAD.
I used to work for Autodesk, there are very few things the company likes about Apple.
Any Mac products they have now or used to develop for (e.g. cleaner, Maya) dont get the development attention they deserve or need. Autodesk like many look at the Mac market as tiny and of little importance.
The Mac doesn’t need Autoca……blah blah blah. What BS. The MAC NEEDS AUTOCAD. It’s one of the few remaining software hurdles, and it’s high time Autocad is written for the Mac. A ground up rewrite sounds like an opportunity to make it even better than a windows version.
Utter nonsense article!!!
The writing has been on the wall since Apple released Motion 1.0. Apple is going after Autodesk’s market.
The power of current day consumer GPUs and 8 core Mac in the right hands can level any playing field.
Autodesk, I hope you are looking forward to NAB as much as I am. Expect some very serious competition.
FCP 6 studio will go after Fire while Phenomenon will mop up the Nitris and Flame market.
You heard it here first….
Like Windows, AutoCAD is a bloated, overpriced kludge.
I tried the last Mac version of AutoCAD.
There were a REASONS it didn’t sell.
It was crap and it was overpriced.
At the time, MiniCAD, PowerDraw, Vellum and even Claris CAD kicked it’s butt all at around 1/4 the price.
Also, according to Architosh (try finding anything on their web site), AutoCAD has been steadily losing market share an now hovers around 50%.
AutoDesk should publish their COMPLETE file format specs!
@switched
You are a very stupid man if you think that FCP 6 is going to be competiton for Fire which is real-time at 10bit 4:4:4 at up to 2K. FCP, as much as I love it, can’t even mix resolutions on a single timeline without rendering, and it’s media managment is a joke compared to Fire. In addition there’s no way a facility could or would charge the same for an hour on a fire system as they would do for FCP.
All we heard here first was that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Raymond:
” … for that kind of money one could create a “clean sheet” competitor, built to modern programming standards…”
Yeah, it’s called VectorWorks!