Evolution of the CAD market -- Unix Maintains Its Lead, But Windows NT Gains Strong Foothold
Lee Pender
10/26/98
Computer Reseller News
Page 133
Copyright 1998 CMP Publications Inc.
Waltham, Mass. -- While many users of computer-aided design (CAD) software are moving to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system, many also still are hanging on to the Unix platform.
CAD has long been a Unix domain, especially in large corporations and among high-end users. However, in the past year, Windows NT has made strong gains. And some developers are taking notice.
San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk Inc., for one, excluded Unix in the latest release of its AutoCAD software, popular among midrange customers.
AutoCAD Release 14 runs on Windows machines only.
Autodesk is seeing migration to Windows NT among some of its largest customers, said A.G. Lambert, product manager for Autodesk's Architectural Desktop application. "It's more in large firms that you see people going to NT," he said. "There are accounts which are still in Unix, but they're going fast."
However, while Unix is still making modest gains, use of Windows NT in the CAD market is growing rapidly. So far this year, Unix still owns most of the revenue share in the CAD market, according to Daratech Inc. Unix has 56 percent of the market, and revenue is up 11 percent from 1997. But Windows NT now owns 30 percent of the market, and revenue is up 39 percent compared with last year, said Bruce Jenkins, vice president at Daratech, Cambridge, Mass.
"The fact that Unix is roughly twice the size of NT in terms of revenue shows that the reports of the death of Unix have been greatly exaggerated, and [Unix is still] growing," Jenkins said. "Something that big growing at 11 percent is no disappointment. Unix is bound to be around for a long, long time."
Software plays an important role in resellers' CAD sales. In 1997, software accounted for 51.3 percent of revenue and 43.2 percent of margins, according to Daratech. This compares with hardware, which represented 24.7 percent of revenue but only 14.7 percent of margins, and services, which made up 23 percent of revenue and 41.6 percent of margins, the research company found.
However, in the meantime, CAD's migration to Windows NT continues, and several factors are at play, according to industry executives. One is the ever present worry about total cost of ownership, said Roopinder Tara, general manager of the CAD division at IMSI, developer of TurboCAD, San Rafael.
"It's getting very hard for companies to justify more and more seats of Unix stations," Tara said. "Unix [workstations] can cost four or five times as much as an NT machine."
While many old-line CAD users, such as automotive customers, are sticking with Unix, some more recent additions are moving lower-end users to Windows NT, he added. Drafters and machinists, according to Tara, are more likely to use Windows NT because they do not need the sophistication of Unix.
Also, Tara said, Windows NT's functionality has largely caught up with the power that Unix can offer.
"There is always downtime when you switch systems, but there's no functionality loss when you go to PC-based systems anymore," he said.
Another factor in Windows NT's rise is the presence of the Microsoft name. The Redmond, Wash.-based software developer's name lends credibility to the operating system and puts those with purchasing responsibilities at ease, said Daratech's Jenkins.
"There is a growing acceptance that technologies endorsed by Microsoft are a safe choice," he said. "They are today what IBM [Corp.] was in the 1970s: No one will get fired for making that decision."
Still, Jenkins added, while Windows NT eventually might eclipse Unix in the CAD space, the venerable operating system is likely to have a presence among designers for years to come.
And, he added, Unix still offers some features that Windows NT cannot yet match. These areas include Unix's emphasis on networking and multiprocessing, said Jenkins.
"The Unix culture is still more network-aware than the Microsoft culture," he said. "It's also more multiprocessing-aware. These are technical differences that remain to be fully addressed."
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