Quickie: Autodesk acquires Firehole Composites

We interrupt our stream of tweets for a news bulletin …. I’m at the CD-adapco user conference so this has to be quick (so far, we’ve had great company and user presentations, been challenged to be better leaders by Mr. Gene Kranz himself and seen, from afar, a rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center — and we’re not done yet!), but it’s important that you know that Autodesk has acquired Firehole Technologies to add composites simulation tech to its arsenal. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Firehole is expected to have “no impact on guidance issued on February 25”. (To be clear, it would have to be a pretty big acquisition to move Autodesk’s needle, and my models don’t have Firehole at quite that level.) Firehole’s expertise is in composites, which are everywhere these days. Lighter and stronger than many alternatives, composites are used in aerospace, automotive, marine, consumer and many other applications — but they’re complicated materials made of layers of different materials and simulating their behavior has been difficult. Firehole, Vistagy and a few others developed technology that can model, predict and optimize the performance of these composites and give manufacturers a greater degree of confidence in their “ligher, stronger, safer, energy efficient” claims. A couple of people commented to me that they believe Autodesk will bring this technology to new verticals, like building design. That’s certainly possible but if I were Autodesk, I’d go after the bigger markets first. Automotive and aerospace designers face significant challenges in terms of weight, stiffness and flexibility — which, in turn, affect weight and fuel efficiency. It sounds as though the Firehole developer team is joining Autodesk and that Autodesk intends to continue to sell and support Helius:MCT and Helius:CompositePro. OK. Back to the rocket launch afterparty.