By Carl Bass, Autodesk President and CEO
In light of their upcoming launch, several people have asked me about Onshape. Given how hyperbolic and misleading their statements have been, it is time to set the record straight. After all, Onshape is entitled to their own opinions – but not their own facts.
“The CAD market hasn’t changed. The way people design and build products has changed,” according to Onshape co-founder and chairman Jon Hirschtick. “It’s like the land that time forgot.”
The first claim they make is that Onshape is new and revolutionary – the first to the cloud. It’s as if to say nothing happened in CAD while they weren’t building CAD tools. Such hubris makes for interesting reading, but it’s just not true.
We launched AutoCAD 360 (formerly AutoCAD WS) in January 2010. AutoCAD 360 is a web and mobile CAD product that has 20,000,000 users who have created almost 100,000,000 models. TinkerCAD, a browser-based 3D modeling tool for kids launched in 2011. It has more than 500,000 users and more than 350,000 people use it every month. More than 4,000,000 models have been created and its usage usually peaks at about 20,000 concurrent sessions in a single day. And our broad-based collaboration platform A360 was released in December and already has over 100,000 users with more than 6,000,000 new files being uploaded every week. Onshape first? Hardly!
But Onshape is probably most similar to Fusion 360, our cloud-based CAD/CAM tool. Fusion 360 launched in June 2013 and has more than 50,000 users that have created almost 500,000 models. Let’s compare it to Solidworks just to give you a feel for the size of the market. In 2000, five years after Solidworks launched, it had 50,000 subscribers on maintenance. The numbers for Fusion are pretty impressive especially when you compare them with legacy desktop applications but the rate at which people are discovering and using Fusion is staggering. What’s even more pleasing to me is that more than 90% of these users are new Autodesk customers.
But instead of taking my word for it, let’s see what those who follow the industry have to say. Last week Cadalyst published:
“Of all the leading CAD developers, Autodesk has been the most aggressive and vocal about bringing cloud technology to design. It now has a range of cloud-based products available, all of which share ‘360’ in their name to signify the new all-access approach.”
Is this the land that time forgot or were they just not paying attention?
Their second argument confuses the web browser with the cloud.
Let’s back up to the basics and explore what the cloud is good for when it comes to design and engineering. First and foremost, the cloud provides access to nearly infinite and scalable computing power at reasonable costs. In the world of engineering, this is incredibly powerful. We have used the cloud for compute-intensive tasks like visualization, simulation and analysis. Our cloud-based rendering service has made more than 17,000,000 images. Here’s a model from Fusion 360 rendered completely in the cloud.
And our simulation and analysis engines run completely in the cloud. Some jobs require only minutes, others thousands of hours. Using the right technology for the right job is the key to making sense of this new computing infrastructure.
The second thing that the cloud is ideally suited to do is be the central coordination point for storage, data management and collaboration. Behind all of our cloud-based products are the tools that allow people to manage their data and their projects. For those apps that center on files, tools like A360 allow for sharing and viewing of files. For tools like Fusion 360 that have built-in collaboration and data management capabilities, A360 provides the underlying infrastructure to store, manage and version the data.
Now let me directly address the question of access to the cloud via browsers or apps. Look at your phone or tablet where both the browser and apps exist. Which one do you choose to use? It depends. If I’m accessing my email I tend to use the mail apps on my devices. If I’m using Evernote or Twitter or A360, I prefer the apps. But there are many times where the browser is more convenient and over time, the browser will definitely get better.
But for CAD applications today the browser means reduced functionality, less capacity for big models, slower performance (for anything that has to roundtrip to the servers) and most importantly, no offline access to your data. In fact, the CEO of Onshape has said that not having offline use is the bet they are making.
How do we know offline is important? Because when we first rolled out Fusion 360, the single biggest complaint we got is that people wanted access to their data and tools even when they had limited or no Internet connectivity.
And how do we know about the tradeoffs? Because we built the tools that more engineers use on web, mobile and desktops than anyone else in the world. Our goal is to make sure our customers have access to the tools and data they need on any device they want.
But again, rather than taking my word for it, here’s what engineering.com said last year:
“The gauntlet has been thrown. Can the entire product lifecycle live on the cloud? Several companies have ported their offerings to the cloud, but Autodesk is by far the clear winner in creating native cloud-based design applications.”
One thing on which we agree is that the way products are designed, engineered and manufactured has changed. The third leap of faith Onshape is asking users to take is to conclude that their tool solves these problems better than other tools in the market. It’s a big leap and nowhere are the differences in our approach more clear.
One window into how each company thinks about the problem is the names we’ve chosen. As Jon Hirschtick says, “when you’re Onshape, it means you got the form and geometry of your design just right.” That’s interesting, but we believe shape description is table stakes for today’s tools and isn’t central to solving the evolving needs of today’s designers and engineers. When you look more closely, tools like Onshape have very limited shape description capabilities when compared to almost all of the existing desktop tools. So how does having a less functional modeler running in the browser solve these problems? I’m not sure it does.
On the other hand, we chose Fusion as the name for our product to show how we were bringing together technologies that had previously been separate. We started by having mechanical design and industrial design tools together in one cloud-based application. We built data management into that environment. And we brought together design tools with visualization, simulation and fabrication (CAM and 3D printing) tools. We built an ecosystem so that people could share and collaborate on their work with increasingly distributed design teams and supply chains. We think that this is the right vision for solving the complexities of today’s design teams.
Making bold statements makes for good press but doesn’t solve customers’ problems. So while we're flattered (and have a few other emotions) that Onshape is copying many things we pioneered, what’s most important to us is solving real customer problems.
One of our newest customers summed it up nicely by saying:
"The easy learning curve and collaborative nature [of Fusion 360] allowed our industrial designer to work seamlessly with our hardware lead, which is something we hadn't been able to manage on any other platform. This ultimately led us from a proof of concept to functional prototype in a matter of weeks instead of months.”
The more appropriate comparison is Onshape as it started and any other CAD product when it was first released. I am not the one to comment on functionality (there are others here significantly more qualified than I), but apples to apples comparisons are most appropriate.
Paul,
To your question on “When can we expect to concurrently access Revit central models stored on our cloud-based servers?” please check out Project Skyscraper at: http://www.autodesk.com/products/collaboration-for-revit/overview
Ralph,
I want to follow up on your comment:
“As I understand it, Fusion 360 runs mostly on the desktop, with just a few functions that run optionally on an Autodesk server, like rendering. OnShape is 100% on the cloud. For this reason, I don’t understand how “OnShape is probably most similar to Fusion 360” or how Fusion 360 can be called “our cloud-based CAD/CAM tool” when it is not (mostly). – See more at: http://inthefold.autodesk.com/in_the_fold/2015/03/setting-the-record-straight.html#sthash.YedJ77H8.dpuf“
When we talked, I made the point that our focus is on any device and ensuring the best user experience given that device. Your characterization that that “Fusion is not (mostly) Cloud-based.” is not accurate. As Carl notes above, cloud and browser are not the same thing. Evernote and Spotify have thin-clients, but no one would call them anything but cloud services. Some people forget too — Fusion 360 offers a thin local client because our customers were asking for a way to work offline. Browser only and mobile clients are on their way using the cloud stack that we have been building for the last 5 years openly with our community. This is about doing what’s best for engineers, not what’s the “coolest” technology for it’s own sake.
We live in an (what to me is an) exciting world of rapidly changing markets, supplier ecosystems and technologies. As Carl (rightly) intimates, our aspirations of technology (both software and hardware) should be so much more than just a better ‘mousetrap’. It’s about helping clients achieve (profitable) ambitions and deliver better, more affordable, differentiating products to us, their customers.
Software innovation that allows us to do old things in new ways, does new things, makes the simple trivial (or unneeded), the difficult simple and the impossible, possible…and available to all, is the next generation. I applaud all those who’re making this happen, keep up the great work!
As an Autodesk re-seller and a consulting partner, there were days when we used to dread the idea of CAD moving to the cloud. We were worried about our business interests if everything were to move away from the desktop which we sold and earned our bread & butter.
But, Autodesk is not a company that does things for the sake of doing it. As a company focused on satisfying engineering and business needs, it has moved key functionality and features that require collaboration and heavy muscle power to the cloud, while safely keeping localized processes on the desktop.
And just as in the past, continues to offer several customization and development options through APIs to its desktop and cloud offerings, thus opening up huge service and consulting opportunities for partners like us, who add value to client needs.
With cloud opening up, we now have bigger reach and business opportunities in providing cloud content, BIM libraries, cloud based ETO configurations, PLM that talks to ERP and manufacturing on the cloud etc.
Now, we dont fear cloud; rather we see opportunities from a bigger market.
When can we expect to concurrently access Revit central models stored on our cloud-based servers?
When there is no competitor, the strength of a product cannot be quantified for a common man. New products come to the market with a bang, saying it does this, it does that. All I can say is Autodesk has been consistent in the cloud since 2013 as I’ve been using Fusion 360 and will retain its position in the cloud world. The arrival of new cloud tools will just make users better understand what the offerings are on the cloud.
As much fun as a good public debate can be these guys are hardly important enough to argue with. OnShape is the Dahntay Jones of software. #HeDontPlay…
Two comments about ‘the Cloud’, security and reliability.
As far as I’m concerned and I believe a lot of companies as well, ‘the Cloud’ starts the moment it leaves a company’s intranet via fibre-optics etc.
The data is now outside the control of the company and yet not controlled by the company providing service. As an engineer I always ask the question, “what happens when something goes wrong?” I stress, when not if.
An atypical example, a project needs to be completed, all that is needed is some analysis. As the data is being sent to ‘the Cloud’ a workman digs through a fibre-optic cable severing the company’s digital link with the outside world.
It now gets worse. The company employed to repair the fibre-optic isn’t that bothered about security and the person who repairs the fibre-optic installs a device that can read the light pulses and transmits that to A. N. Other.
This is only discovered when it become apparent that Intellectual Property has been stolen. The Court case becomes long and protracted and it all becomes very ugly. In the meantime, the company wanting the analysis has had the reputation badly damaged and loses work.
Okay, this is a worse case scenario, but you can hopefully see people’s fears. Intellectual Property is now outside of the control of owning company and there is always the risk of a technical failure in between the company and the place where the analysis happens.
A secure satellite link as a back-up might answer some of these fears, but I would still advise caution.
Hi Carl,
Great article. Concise and factual – with no name calling 😉
I have to tell you.Although I’ve been involved with Fusion360 from the beginning, I’m excited about the arrival of OnShape.
Why? Because at heart I am not a Solidworks fan or an Inventor fan – I’m a CAD fan! and proud of it 😉
OnShape means competition for Fusion360. Competition drives innovation, which means better CAD tools for us.
I’m glad you guys have got each other to spur each other on. Just keep it friendly 😉
I’m looking forward to hearing from you both at D3D Live in March.
Bring it on!
Paul Munford
As I understand it, Fusion 360 runs mostly on the desktop, with just a few functions that run optionally on an Autodesk server, like rendering. OnShape is 100% on the cloud. For this reason, I don’t understand how “Onshape is probably most similar to Fusion 360” or how Fusion 360 can be called “our cloud-based CAD/CAM tool” when it is not (mostly).
For details, please see Kevin Schneider’s January interview at http://www.worldcadaccess.com/upfrontezine/2015/01/upfrontezine-.html
I sit next to Carl. I just happened to peek over his shoulder while he was typing this up. I remember chuckling to myself how he was toiling over it so passionately, when blog writing is something I do every day.