Autodesk certainly faces the Innovators Dilemma – particularly with regard to cloud technology (think of them supporting VEO while building 360).  Phil Read includes the following footnote on page 16 of his AB2340 handout:

*  Clayton Christensen refers to this as the “Innovators Dilemma”: Internal competition that cannibalizes existing, successful processes are discouraged. Apple is one of the few businesses that will actively cannibalize successful products. The philosophy is that since their competition is trying to do this, the best way to compete is to do it better. Be the best in the world at making successful products obsolete.

PDF Download: http://tinyurl.com/bsoyp2l 

via http://www.architecture-tech.com/

And yes, its was difficult for me to post something that puts Apple in a positive light 🙂

It’s not quite ‘Live Free or Die’, but Autodesk needs to acknowledge the dichotomy that exists between these two aphorisms:

  • Develop innovative software
  • Buy someone else’s innovation and integrate it into your own homogenous ecosystem

I enjoyed the following paragraph from SARUG:

One thing is very clear, Autodesk needs to seek out, listen and respond, through product development, to the end users of their products in order to prioritize and target improvements to their software.  Without that tactical approach they run the risk of client migration to another more responsive solution, (can you say “AutoCAD to Revit (pre Autodesk) circa 2000”) and will be relegated to buying innovative solutions rather than developing them and then having to deal with the two way communication issue anyway.

via
SARUG End of Year Meeting 2011 � Southern Arizona Revit User Group