Tag: autodesk

The cost of the cloud: How the disrupters are being disrupted

Cisco, Autodesk and Microsoft’s cutbacks and pivots show technology companies are not immune from disruption

A common factor when talking to tech companies is their talk of disrupting industries, they themselves are not immune from change though.

This week networking giant Cisco announced they would cut seven percent of their workforce, nearly 5,500 employees, as the company deals with the shift to software defined networking equipment continues.

Industry commentators are warning Cisco are not alone as software and cloud based services change the tech industry with Global Equities Research’s Trip Chowdhry estimating the sector may shed up to 370,000 positions this year.

Today I had the opportunity to ask Autodesk’s Pat Williams, the company’s Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific, about the challenges facing companies transitioning to the cloud. At the beginning of the year Autodesk announced they would be cutting ten percent, over 900 jobs, as part of a structuring plan.

“I think there was a model that we had that as we moved to a subscription business that said we would see a bit of a drop in revenue and we realised our gross margins would be pressed,” he said.

“What we were trying to do was right-size the business,” Williams continued. “Sometimes you need to do that. It was a very intentional forward looking move we made.”

Autodesk and Cisco are far from the first tech companies to suffer from the software industry’s shift to the cloud. Microsoft have been probably been the business most affected by the change.

Cisco themselves have been dealing with this shift for a decade as well, with a major restructure in 2011 that saw 6,500 jobs cut.

What is clear in a transitioning industry is that Microsoft, Cisco and Autodesk are far from alone in making cuts. As Autodesk’s Williams points out, it’s probably best for managements to be doing this proactively rather than waiting for the changes to force their hands.

The stories of Cisco, Autodesk and Microsoft show all industries are facing changes. Assuming you’re safe in any sector is brave thinking.

Cloudy times for the tech workforce

Autodesk’s firing of ten percent of its workforce indicates some harsh times are coming for tech workers.

For listed tech companies 2016 has been a bloodbath to date however design company Autodesk seems to have bucked the trend.

The key to keeping investors happy seems to lie in announcing major layoffs, in Autodesk’s case ten percent of its workforce which equates to 950 workers.

Autodesk’s management are painting those layoffs as being due to the company’s transition to cloud services with online subscriptions making up over half the business’ revenue.

Regardless of how valid that reasoning is, the message to the tech workers is clear; more tough times are coming.

With investors ruthlessly expecting better profits, focused leadership and leaner workforces many managers are going to have to face some tough decisions in what’s looking like a difficult year.

Investing in a low consumption economy

In an age where economic growth doesn’t require an exponential increase in energy and resource consumption, new investment models will be required

Four days at the Autodesk University in Las Vegas last week confirmed how a radical change has happened in economic development since the turn of this century. The question is whether business and national leaders will accept this new reality.

Andrew McAfee’s session at the Autodesk opening keynote illustrated the declining use of commodities by advanced nations. McAfee’s point dovetailed nicely with that of Kevin Ashton a few weeks earlier in Sydney that energy consumption of devices is falling as well.

Showcased at the conference were the new manufacturing processes, design methods and smart materials showing how we’re now in an age where increasing living standards are not coupled to rising consumption rates.

Falling use of energy and resources, even while living standards and functionality grow, is a direct contrast to the economic models of the past three hundred years where increasing affluence and quality of life meant exponentially increasing demands for energy and commodities.

This point has been missed by many businesses and policy makers, particularly in Australia where the assumption of ever increasing demands for energy has seen massive over-investment in coal and gas export facilities along with the tragic gold plating of the electricity distribution at cost that’s now crippling the nation’s industries and households.

Businesses, and nations, that haven’t recognised the trends will need admit the error, write off those costs and move onto the new model.

For voters, consumers and investors it’s time to demand leaders of business and government accept the 21st Century economic model is very different to that of the previous century.

Waiting for an innovation miracle

For most organisations innovation is harder and more complex than it seems observes Autodesk CEO Carl Bass

Many companies are waiting for an innovation miracle said Autodesk CEO Carl Bass at the company’s final press and analyst conference at the Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas late last year.

“Change happens when new people enter the market or companies find new ways to do things or they are scared by competitors doing something they can’t do,” Bass said in an answer to a question from a Korean journalist about dealing with changing markets.

“The two things I hear over and over again from customers – you stand back and scream because they are all the same – most of our customers want to innovate,” Bass continued.

Building for sustainable change

“Generally they mean they want to build sustainable, competitive changes. They want to create products that have the ‘Apple Premium’ that someone wants to pay more for because it’s the best product in the category and they want to sustain that for as long as possible.

“The second thing that’s almost universal with our customers is when they have a good idea, they want to get that to market as quick as possible. To the extent we supply the tools to help them fulfil those two big needs of ‘how can I innovate and do something I wasn’t capable of doing?’ or ‘how can I shorten the time between when I think about this to when I can sell this?’ Those are things that will motive people.”

At this stage Autodesk CTO Brian Kowalski chimed in, “there is slightly depressing moment in the innovation conversation where the customer says ‘I really want to transform into an innovative company. Can you help me do that using exactly the same tools, people and mindset I currently have. They are hopeful our answer will be ‘yes, we can help you.”

For those organisations Kowalski had bad news pointing out that creating a corporate environment that embraces change requires all three of the ‘people, processes and technology’ triangle. Just adding a new product over the top of the existing culture won’t change the business.

Sympathy for the corporation

Bass though has a sympathetic view towards those large organisations seeking to change.

“Companies do believe there’s some miracle that happens and one of the things I’ve seen most clearly is this idea among startups and VC backed firms is that big companies are just dumb and unaware,” Bass stated. “There almost no large company anywhere in the world that doesn’t know what is going on the world, some of these companies have whole armies of people whose only job is to figure out what’s new and exciting and interesting.”

“People on the other side don’t understand this, they (big company managers) know what’s going on and what’s different, they may not have the wherewithal to change but the idea that car companies didn’t see changes coming – that they couldn’t see a Tesla – they knew but there were a bunch of reasons why they couldn’t make it to the other side.”

Skilling the next generation

Another aspect that troubles Bass are the skills of the next generation of managers, engineers and software developers.

“The second thing I wanted to say about tools is that I go to a lot of universities and I talk to academics about what’s coming next,” he says. “What depresses me a little bit is the faculties have all sorts of new ideas and methodologies but they are teaching using old software tools. No student I know would want a twenty year old cellphone but they sit dutifully and learn twenty year old software. I think that’s one area they have to change first.”

 

Bass and Kowalski make some important points about the challenges facing organisations seeking to adapt to changes markets, workforces and a rapidly evolving society – it’s not easy and the issues facing all businesses are complex.

Paul attended Autodesk University in Las Vegas as a guest of Autodesk.

The limits of today’s technologies – day two of Autodesk University

The second day of Autodesk University gave more insights into the future of design and manufacturing but it also showed the limits

The second day of Autodesk University 2015 in Las Vegas continued the focus on innovation and changing industries, the afternoon innovation session was particularly focused on some of the opportunities being realised in drones, pre-fabricated buildings and lampshades made out of fungus.

Brooklyn based designer Danielle Trofe gave a great demonstration of how she’s using fungus to create a range of sustainable light shades. Interestingly in a conversation earlier in the day with Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski the topic of growing products out of Mycelium, the vegetative part of a fungus that Trofe uses, was discussed in terms of smart packaging and biodegradable products.

Growing products out of organic material is one of the themes explored in Mercedes Benz’s Biome concept car which proposes to grow the chassis out of seeds. While realising that concept is some way off, Trofe’s Mush-Lume idea shows some products are already at that stage.

Rethinking prefab buildings

Following Trofe was Jos Mulkens, the CEO of Dutch building company Voorbij Prefab, who described how by using sophisticated design tools and 3D printing to make prefabricated building panels they had reduced to the time to fabricate elements from days to hours.

Mulkens gave a good insight into how design and production workflows are being accelerated with modern technology, particularly in replacing manual form makers to make the moulds for the precast panels. Voobij Prefab are flagging a lot of disruption heading for the building industry.

At one the media breakout sessions a group of senior Autodesk managers discussed the trends in design and materials engineering. This turned out to be an interesting session on the limits of current technologies.

Composite technologies

Max Moruzzi, Autodesk’s Principal Research Scientist, is a passionate believer in composite materials and the benefits they promise. However he conceded when challenged by his colleague Steve Hobbs, who joined Autodesk last year with the acquisition of  UK based Computer Aided Manufacturing company Delcam, about the structural properties of composites that we still have a lot to understand about how they behave and fail.

Bringing a touch of English scepticism to the panel, Hobbs pointed out almost all metallic components made by 3D printing require some sort of mechanical, subtractive finishing such as milling or polishing.

Hobbs went onto warn that we risk introducing a “hairball of complexity” into the design and manufacturing industries as people experiment with developing products with materials and techniques they don’t fully understand.

All the panel, which also included Carl White – Autodesk’s senior director of marketing for advanced manufacturing – and Benjamin Schrauwen who leads the company’s Spark 3D printing division, agreed that applying current design and manufacturing methods need to be rethought in the light of new methods being developed.

The limits of 3D printing

It was notable in the panel Q&A around the revelation that 70% of 3D printing projects fail, the panel put this down to the relative immaturity of software and machinery along with the technologies currently being poorly understood. Hobbs observed that for GE to 3D print their jet engine parts they rebuild and reprogram the printers they buy to their own higher specifications.

For the final session CEO Carl Bass and CTO Jeff Kowalski faced a Q&A from analysts and the media, that session was interesting in exploring some of the directions Autodesk sees industry and business heading and I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

Overall, the Autodesk University has been an interesting insight into the future of design and manufacturing along with the effects this has on other industries. With these technologies at an early stage, it’s a field that is going to evolve rapidly.

Paul Wallbank travelled to Autodesk University in Las Vegas as a guest of Autodesk.

The future of making things – Autodesk University Day One

Autodesk University is a glimpse into the future of design and making things

“With technology I’m free,” says Hugh Herr of MIT Media Lab in the finishing segment of the Autodesk University 2015 opening keynote.

Herr was describing how he overcame losing both his legs to frostbite at age 17 after being caught in a blizzard. Determined to continue his passion for climbing he started developing better prosthetics, studied mechanical engineering and became the leader of MIT Media Lab’s Biomechatronics Group.

Prosthetic design is one of the aspects highlighted by Autodesk in their San Francisco Demonstration Gallery with good reason given the life transforming potential along with the imperatives of designing and manufacturing durable devices.

Design and manufacturing are naturally the key things for Autodesk with CEO Carl Bass outlining some of the possibilities in the opening keynote for the Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas yesterday.

Bass had some thoughts on the current buzzword of innovation, “it’s not one dramatic improvement of everything that came before, it’s most often combination of pragmatic improvements combining and refixing things in really new ways.”

“It’s about doing the really hard work, the often unsexy work, of packaging it all up and making it successful.”

The McGyver IoT

Bass illustrated this view of innovation with a story of  troubleshooting his home lathe by duct taping his smartphone to the machine and using the microphone and gyroscope to detect when the cutting tip was becoming blunt.

As Bass pointed out, his “McGyver concoction” of a phone and duct tape is a good example of a basic Internet of Things application where sensors, this time built into the smartphone, detect the state of a machine. It’s a small step from there to developing lathes that change their own cutting tools when required.

Combining the IoT into design where a product’s design changes on feedback from its environment was a key part of the day’s discussions and touched upon Skylar Tibbit’s work on intelligent materials.

Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski took the longer view of how the shift from passive to generative design methods will change the way we work stating boldly, “in the next twenty years we’ll see more change in the nature of work than we’ve seen in the last two thousand.”

Rethinking manufacturing

Kowlaski pointed out how the way of working where a craftsman has to point a tool at materials to form them is now being left behind as we start to see materials, and machines, that can manufacture themselves.

For the present design and manufacture by humans remains the way we do things and in the media sessions one of the case studies was Airbus’ bionic partition where the company’s Bastian Schaefer and Autodesk’s David Benjamin described the process of redesigning a basic aircraft part.

The results of a combination of 3D printing – in this case laser sintering of a metal alloy – and generative design resulted in a partition 45% lighter and eight percent thinner, savings not insubstantial when every kilo in an airliner costs its operator 106Kg of kerosene each year.

An age of reduced consumption

Reducing the resources being used was a key part of Andrew Mcafee’s keynote presentation where he describes a ‘dematerialising’ economy where a modern society is using less in the way of resources and energy while still improving living standards.

 

Overall, the first day of the Autodesk University conference was an interesting exploration into how design and technology is changing lives both on the societal level and for individuals, as Hugh Herr’s story attests.

Paul travelled to Las Vegas as a guest of Autodesk