Who has the most CAD users?
Alan Pendry asked the following question in a comment to an earlier posting here:
"So who has the most CAD users, and in which sectors? Is there a market leader, e.g. does ProE or CATIA dominate the solid modelling market? Is there more CATIA in automotive companies and does ProE dominate the aerospace sector?"
I imagine that, somewhere, there is a bunch of expensive market research that tells the complete story. But I can give my unsubstantiated perspective:
- CATIA and NX are the big players in the aerospace and automotive businesses, and particularly in airframe, auto body, and aero turbines.
- Pro/E has meaningful parts of the aerospace and automotive businesses (for example, it's historically strong in auto powertrain), and a strong presence in capital equipment.
- SolidWorks and Solid Edge are strong throughout a range of sectors.
- Inventor seems to be strongest in the manufacturing equipment sector.
Now, as for who has the most CAD users: Considering that AutoCAD does solid modeling (and has for years), it is the seat count champion overall.
If we forget about seat count and revenue, and just look at influence, Dassault (CATIA and SolidWorks), and Siemens PLM (NX and Solid Edge) are the leaders in the MCAD solid modeling arena. I put PTC (Pro/E and CoCreate) at number three, and Autodesk (Inventor) at number four.
Why do I place Autodesk last? Because I measure influence based on how hard a CAD seat is to displace. CATIA and NX seats are very hard to displace. There used to be a lot of easy-pickings among Pro/E seats, but most of those are gone. The existing Pro/E seats will probably take some hard work to displace. The only way to displace SolidWorks and Solid Edge seats is with giveaway pricing. And, considering that Inventor is the newest kid on the block, that leaves it in last place on this list.
If I look at who has the most potential to displace previously locked-in seats, it's another story. No matter how locked-in they are, I'd put CATIA and Pro/E at the top of the list in terms of pissed-off customers. And that puts them at the top of the target list for Autodesk and Siemens PLM.
This is all just opinion. If you think I'm wrong, post a comment.
Evan Yares
4 Comments
Reader Comments (4)
Attacking a competitive installed customer can be very price sensitive plus having a very high sales cost. Therefore it's not in any CAD company's interest to blindly attack unless the customer is asking for a solution to a particular issue.
Also there is always an issue of transition between systems that normally make any initial purchase quite small and therefore unprofitable for a VAR.
As can be seen from the Cocreate deal with PTC, may be the best way to penetrate an installed base is to but the original software editor. Therefore you benefit from the maintenance revenue during the transition period and have a higher chance of offsetting the software discount that you need to offer.
Regards
Biggles
Regards,
Azmi Yusoff
IronCAD is an interesting CAD program, but it's hardly challenging the leaders in the mid-range market segment. I'd be surprised to hear about it replacing very many SolidWorks or Solid Edge seats.