As long as there has been CAD, there have been CAD files. For AutoCAD, there were DWG files. Inventor also had a proprietary file format, as did Revit. Other vendors, SolidWorks, Creo, NX and CATIA, all did, as well.
Then came Onshape, which, instead of files, kept a database on the cloud – and because of that setup, they were able to do strange and wondrous things, like collaborate, do versioning and have a single source of truth. Okay, fine, whatever. This strange cloud-based CAD program was not about to change how the majority of CAD users were going about their business.
But while most of us were not paying attention to a low-volume database vs. cloud debate, Autodesk was. And the company has decided in favor of a database approach. In effect, if not by name, Autodesk is saying Onshape had the right idea all along.
At Autodesk’s annual user meeting, Autodesk University 2024, we were to find out just how seriously the CAD juggernaut was about going full database and if not abandon files, make them yesterday’s news.
The disadvantage of Onshape, starting from a user base of zero, was also its advantage. That afforded the startup the luxury of being able to change everything. An established CAD vendor cannot do that. It’s the old good news, bad news joke that is often told about Autodesk.
The good news: AutoCAD has a lot of users.
The bad news: Autodesk has a lot of users.
Get it? A large user base discourages innovation. A user base of millions is a millions of votes for preserving the status quo. For them, innovation is disruption.
What a quandary: advance to state-of-the-art or mollify the existing user base? Clearly, the trick will be to do both. That can be done by convincing the existing user base that even fundamental changes in the way software works will have no effect on them – and may even provide them some benefit.
To be continued.
