by I have been a user and customer of Autodesks AutoCAD since 1986
and have noticed how my enthusiasm for the company has withered.
Every since Autodesk dumped the OS/2 market (remember AutoCAD for
OS/2, R10), I have felt that the company has been driven by market
paranoia instead of trying to create the best CAD system possible.
I remember once I sat in on a demonstration of the then new
AutoCAD R11 for Windows. During the demo, half of the time was
spent promoting Microsoft Visual Basic. I thought this was kind
of odd since I didnt see any MS sales people running around.
Then later I saw an adverti*t for AutoCAD that had a bit that
said something like this: "and its compatible with industry
standard databases like FoxPro", FoxPro, shouldnt that have said
dBase?
This made me think that maybe Autodesk had become so fearful of
Microsoft that they didnt want to do anything that would upset
them. Thats why they dont even mention the fact that they once
had an OS/2 version of AutoCAD.
The reason why I think Autodesk is fearful of Microsoft is that
they have probably held some meetings at Autodesk to discuss the
"AutoCAD Nightmare Scenario"
It goes something like this:
Microsoft wakes up one day and sees that theres money to be made
in the CAD market. So Microsoft does what Microsoft does best,
they go out and buy a CAD company. And the one that they buy is
Bentley Systems, Inc.. Bingo, you now have MicrosoftStation.
Its a great CAD system so all they have to do is repackage it, do
the great MS marketing and the next thing you know, Autodesk stock
takes a dive! Then a little while later, they dump the Motif
interface, make it behave like Word and Excel, convert MDL to
MFCs and... Bingo again, MicrosoftStation 6.0! Version 6.0
now takes 80% of the CAD market! Parties over, Autodesk shuts
it's doors!
Oh well, Its just a dream (I mean, a nightmare).
Cheers!
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