CAD in Russia

As one of the CAD/CAM/CAE editors on MACHINE DESIGN, I travel a lot to software tradeshows and user conferences. Some of the functions include journalists from all over the world. I met a journalist from Russia at a recent event who kindly sent me a copy of "CAD/CAM/CAE Observer," published in that country. Interestingly, small portions of the magazine are in English – just enough to be tantalizing and make you wonder what the rest of the ad or article says. It's interesting to see what jumps out as a product or person immediately recognizable to those interested in CAD.

For example, there is an image of and article by Andrew Anagnost, Senior Director of Product Management at Autodesk titled "Digital prototyping trumps PLM." There is also an ad that says, "PTC releases Pro/Toolmaker 8.1," along with the company's recognizable logo. In an editorial written in somewhat garbled English, the author says he can't see any threat to PLM systems from Dassault or Siemens PLM. He also theorizes that SAP will create its own CAD platform by acquiring "market players" such as CoCreate or PTC. Interestingly, one of the advertisers is TechniCom Inc. Raymond Kurland President of the firm and Editor of TechniCom's eWeekly, is a fellow journalist I often see at the events. He even had a review of Solid Edge in the Russian magazine.