

Case in point: Autodesk buying a CAM company called MES in the 1980s for their CAM technology and ending up doing nothing noteworthy with the CAM technology. History has proven repeatedly that a large company taking over a small company and screwing the integration up is quite common place. They now have a company with very deep pockets who can bankroll their development.Īutodesk: Only time will tell. The founders who were written checks by Autodesk and the employees who were absorbed into Autodesk are for sure the biggest winners here. Now here is my take on the winners and losers in this event. Whether these acquisitions make sense or not might not be the right question to ask. Corporate speak for “let us throw some darts on the wall and see what sticks.” Watch for more such acquisitions in the near future.

With so much money not earning much in terms of interest the executives at Autodesk must be itching to pull the trigger on “strategic acquisitions”.

CAM industry insiders will remember the HSMWorks a year ago in SolidWorks world 2011, made a big splash and offered a free 2-1/2 axis program.

But I would beg to differ on this opinion. First question that comes to my mind is why in the world are the HSMWorks founders selling out? The conventional wisdom seems to be that the founders of HSMWorks are cashing out after Autodesk came in with an offer they could not refuse.
