“Autodesk’s Evolution as a PLM Solution Supplier”: A New Program Review from CIMdata

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — CIMdata, a global Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) consulting and research firm released a new Program Review entitled “Autodesk’s Evolution as a PLM Solution Supplier.” This Review provides CIMdata’s perspective on the transition that Autodesk is executing to transform itself from a supplier of individual PLM-focused point solutions to a supplier of industry-focused solutions that can be the fundamental platform for a company’s overall PLM strategy. As examples, CIMdata describes the experiences of a number of Autodesk’s customers and their perceptions after having worked with Autodesk through this transition.

In this market environment, CIMdata views Autodesk as a company undergoing a significant transition in terms of its approach to the market and its resulting market position. Autodesk has been one of the largest suppliers of PLM applications for many years. However, Autodesk has traditionally been, and has been perceived as a supplier of applications focused on individual productivity to multiple segments of the PLM market, but not as a supplier of full PLM platform environments or solutions. Their family of tools has grown over the years, but Autodesk’s position has been a provider of those tools as individual point solutions. More recently, Autodesk has been combining multiple tools into an integrated suite of offerings that are provided as full solutions focused on specific industry problems. As part of this integration, Autodesk is embedding key capabilities from specialized applications (e.g., analysis tasks) into their design tool solutions so that users can perform those tasks without leaving their primary application. Autodesk’s Digital Prototyping theme is representative of this transition and focus on broader solutions.

Autodesk’s transition has been supported by the significantly expanded breadth and depth of their suite of manufacturing offerings. As an example, the more recent inclusion of Autodesk’s Revit into their suite of manufacturing offerings has extended this solution set even more. This makes the overall offering much more comprehensive and valuable for customers. This transition from providing a collection of interesting features and functions to delivering industry-oriented “solutions” is critical for Autodesk’s overall evolution. This program review presents CIMdata’s view of Autodesk’s evolution and transition to the role of a full PLM solution supplier. Copies of the “Autodesk’s Evolution as a PLM Solution Supplier” CIMdata review are available here at no cost.