AU 2014: a potent mix of strategy and tactics

I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around Autodesk University and am still not sure what my main takeaways are — and it ended almost two weeks ago! On the one hand, it was the most strategic and visionary AU ever, as Autodesk flexes its muscles in both technical and business directions. On the other hand, it was a typical AU with 700-odd classes targeted at users who wanted to improve their skills and certifications. It was a fascinating mix of business, technical, commercial, do-good, big company and maker. Autodesk threw down one gauntlet after another in the keynotes, taking on everything from how and where manufacturers typically do business, what type of people and technologies would be employed in the future in discreet/process/AEC and how the world of connected products (not calling it the Internet of Things, nope) means that everything changes. Big themes:

1. Rapid prototyping (aka 3D printing) and other manufacturing technology advances are changing everything in the manufacturing supply chain. If you’re able to make something locally, you remove transit costs and time. Too, placing manufacturing close to the consumer enables you to create closer ties between designers, manufacturers and consumers. You might even customize your product to some level, which can command a price premium — and that means more data management to tie it all together. It also might mean a leveling of the playing field, removing some of the advantages seen historically by the largest manufacturers. The message: big companies, learn to be nimble or be replaced by startups that can more readily meet fickle consumer needs.
2. The way we design today is predicated on tools that have been around for centuries. Drafting on paper turned into digital design turned into 3D modeling, but each simply documents what the designer has in her mind. Instead, what if, as CTO Jeff Kowalski postulated, we could start with the end goal and work backwards? A desk chair with legs, seat and lumbar support? How would nature create a thing to sit on, without obsessing over (and pre-selecting out) alternatives? Mr. Kowalski says his team is working on algorithms that will show us options given a series of constraints. He sees the emergence of “intelligent classification” and “generative design”, technologies that are a bit like shape optimization in CAE but also fundamentally different. In his vision, we’ll have large databases of CAD models that are searchable for commonalities in both form and function, and that can serve as the baseline for a new design. It’s cool and in Research now as Project Dreamcatcher.
3. We should all have paid more attention in material science class. New materials are transforming everything from cars and airplanes to batteries and other power sources. By thinking in terms of “this is a metal part”, we’re limiting our creativity. A bit like generative design, think instead of what you want the part to do, then let technology tell you what it needs to be made of. A little scary, since it means letting go of the familiar (and probably over-designed), but full of possibility.
4. Infinite computing and ubiquitous connectivity changes everything. During his keynote, CEO Carl Bass showed image after image of the company’s cloud-based products for design, simulation, reality computing and 3D printing. Of note, Mr. Bass said that Autodesk Fusion 360, the cloud-based mechanical design product will be made available at no added cost to Autodesk Product Design Suite subscribers and will, in the future, run entirely in a web browser. If it can run in a web browser, can it run on my phone? (Should it?) What else can I do once I’m able to access the cloud’s computing capacity? From anywhere at any time?
5. Mr. Bass also announced plans for “Subscribe to Autodesk”, a new licensing scheme that will provide access to the entire Autodesk portfolio with a single subscription. After the keynote, Mr. Bass clarified that this will likely shake out to a number of subscriptions and tiers that give clients access to AEC or manufacturing subscriptions, with or without high-end simulation — but the idea of gaining access to the relevant subset of the entire portfolio is interesting and attractive to a lot of customers. They’re waiting for more details of how this will work and what it will cost but, in principle, it provides flexibility to project-based clients to use and pay for only the software they need, when they need it.
6. Also unveiled at AU was Ember, the company’s 3D printer. At $5,995. it’s not as cheap as some had hoped but far cheaper than it might have been. If you’re anxiously awaiting one, you can apply to the Ember Explorer Program (http://spark.autodesk.com/ember-explorer) to buy an early build. Autodesk says it’s not planning to go into the hardware biz, and that Ember is intended to help Autodesk understand what 3D printer users need and want, and wade through the sea of incompatible file formats and bad models that lead to incomplete parts —all contributing to a failure rate of 25% to 75% for 3D printing projects, depending on the combination of software, materials and hardware– currently keeping 3D printing from broader adoption.
7. Finally, Autodesk rolled its academic program worldwide, making its design, engineering and entertainment software and cloud services free** to students, instructors and academic institutions. Mr. Bass told us that he was, effectively, taking the $100 million educational revenue stream to $0 —he serves “at the pleasure of my Board and shareholders and, if they’re unhappy with this, I have other things I could do”— but with the intention of building a very large, well-trained, global user base. It’s good karma; we’ll see if it’s also smart business.

The bottom line: AU 2014 showed just how ginormous Autodesk has become. It’s got hundreds of products that are desktop/cloud/mobile, sold into AEC/manufacturing/entertainment, around the world and to all sizes of companies. That scope allows the company to take risks, such as with Ember and the education program going global, and lets it take on competitors in an almost dismissive way — but could be a bad thing, too, if it means getting too far ahead of its users with all this talk of the changing world of making things. But fear not: the users I spoke with were excited by the possibilities, even if they didn’t think their day jobs were going to change any time soon. They liked what Autodesk had to say and planned on tuning in again next year. ** Some strings attached. See http://www.autodesk.com/education/home for full details.

---

The image above is of Carl Bass taking the stage for his keynote. He’s not a small man, but was dwarfed by the screen behind him. If you look carefully, you can see him center stage. Mr. Bass (pronounced like “bash” without the “h”) came out on stage to the awesome beat of “All About That Bass” (pronounced like “base” as in baseball) by Meghan Trainor. This is Ms. Trainor’s original version: And this is NASA’s — yup, watch it. It’ll make you smile:

---

Note: Autodesk graciously covered some of the expenses associated with my participation at the event but did not in any way influence the content of this post.