Autodesk adds CFdesign to its quiver

Big news: Autodesk announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc., maker of the CFdesign computational fluid dynamics software, for approximately $39 million in cash. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close before April 30, 2011.

This is Autodesk’s second acquisition announcement in 3 days, with far more obvious ramifications for the mechanical design world than the last (Scaleform Corporation, a gaming user interface tools and middleware company, for about $36 million). Scaleform might someday help create a different and better user experience for CAD tools or an immersive environment; CFdesign is already used by some Autodesk customers and will help bring CFD to a much wider audience than ever before.

Robert "Buzz" Kross, SVP of the Manufacturing Industry Group at Autodesk said, "The acquisition of Blue Ridge Numerics will add important new simulation capabilities to virtually test and predict how a product or building design will work, allowing our customers to compete more effectively at every step of the design process."

Ed Williams, president and co-founder of Blue Ridge Numerics, said "Since 1992, Blue Ridge Numerics’ comprehensive CFD tools have helped engineers improve quality, accelerate time-to-market and drive profitability," said "Autodesk is a valued business partner, and the combination of both companies’ proven Digital Prototyping technologies will help customers worldwide tackle complex engineering challenges and ultimately be more successful with their designs." CFdesign became a certified Inventor software partner in 2002, so the companies know one another well and the software is already well-integrated.

Autodesk said it intends to integrate Blue Ridge Numerics into its Manufacturing Industry Group and to continue developing and selling CFdesign products “with a multi-CAD approach, allowing direct data exchange between CFdesign products and multiple computer aided design software offerings.” This last is important, since CFdesign offers connectors to CATIA, CoCreate, NX, Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Edge, SolidWorks and SpaceClaim – in addition to Autodesk’s own Inventor and Revit.

An interesting note that I need time to figure out: the Blue Ridge acquisition is for $39 million in cash and is expected to have a $0.01 per share negative impact on earnings in Q1 and a negative $0.02 to $0.03 impact for the full fiscal year. Scaleform was acquired for just about the same dollar total, cash, but with no bottom line impact. One possible interpretation is that Autodesk plans to invest in R&D and channel build-out for CFdesign in ways that are not required for Scaleform — that’s probably very, very good for CFdesign users.

And one last thing: I did some research last year about CFD companies and how they are perceived in the marketplace. I can’t share much, but Blue RIdge Numerics generally came out at or near the top: well-respected for both innovation and business practices, but difficult for many large companies to consider because of their relatively small size. That’s about to change.

Exciting times.

Note: The press release that was emailed to me isn’t posted on Autodesk’s website as of 10AM ET, so find it here.