Tag Archives: Marketing

Battle of the Bullshit part 5 – Bentley back in the bad books

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Having earlier earned my praise for raising its game in its PR battle with Autodesk, Bentley has unfortunately reverted to BS mode with its latest effort.

In its message “Upgrade your Autodesk Licenses – Top 5 Reasons Why You Have a Choice“, Bentley’s marketers have chosen to step beyond the facts. Bad idea.

Most of that page is just straightforward promotion of Bentley’s self-perceived strong points. No problem with that. But the first full paragraph? Hmm.

Here’s the first example:

Preserve the value of your Autodesk licenses that otherwise would be lost as a result of Autodesk’s decision to no longer offer or support perpetual licenses.

It’s true that Autodesk has decided to no longer offer perpetual licenses. It’s false to state that Autodesk will no longer support them. Perpetual licenses are fully supported with maintenance. Without maintenance, support suffers, but it’s still there. Of course, customers may be rightly fearful about the nasties Autodesk may introduce in future to “persuade” perpetual license owners into subscription subservience, but we’re not there yet and it’s misleading to imply that we are.

What else?

Your perpetual license is a valuable asset. But, if it cannot be upgraded and maintained, it loses all of its value.

It’s true that your perpetual license is a valuable asset. It’s misleading to imply that Autodesk perpetual licenses can’t be maintained. Maintenance is still available, although Autodesk is making it more expensive.

It’s misleading to imply that perpetual licenses can’t be upgraded. It’s true that Autodesk stopped selling upgrades to non-maintenance customers a while ago (having earlier priced them out of the market and then disingenuously citing lack of demand as the excuse for dropping them). But perpetual licenses under maintenance agreements can be upgraded (and are; it’s the biggest part of the deal). They’re obviously also being maintained, so Bentley’s not being fully frank there either.

Finally, a non-upgradable off-maintenance perpetual license does not lose all of its value. It’s still a valuable tool that is capable of doing useful work and generating income for years to come. That’s kind of the point of perpetual licenses; you can stop paying anybody anything and still use the product. In Europe you can even still sell the product.

Elsewhere, Bentley promotes its licensing flexibility. It’s true that Bentley’s continued support for perpetual licenses and availability of rental (term licenses in Bentleyspeak) means it’s 100% more flexible than Autodesk. That doesn’t make it all hunky dory in Bentley license land, though. I don’t see any mention of Bentley’s practice of rounding up your network license use to your detriment, allowing you to silently overshoot your license allowance, then sending you a huge punitive invoice at the end of the billing period.

To be fair, I wouldn’t expect to see that mentioned in marketing materials. But if you have a look at what Bentley customers have had to say about it, particularly from those people who have been over-billed because Bentley has counted license use unfairly, you’ll see that it doesn’t go down at all well with customers. So bear that in mind if you’re thinking of taking up Bentley on this or any other offer.

The rest of the marketing blurb seems fair enough, even if some of the clichéd stock photos are a bit groan-inducing. However, its effectiveness is severely curtailed by its failure to provide details of exactly what is being offered and under what conditions. As I noted with a previous Bentley attempt, curious customers are expected to fill in an online form to obtain information, and that’s a barrier.

It seems I need to repeat something I wrote in an earlier post:

Raise your game, people; we’re not all stupid out here. If you can’t support your argument with the truth, then your argument isn’t a good one and you need to rethink it.

I’m used to Autodesk doing dumb things because it has forgotten to learn from its own history, including pretty recent history in some cases. This episode seems to indicate that Bentley has the same problem.

Bentley, here’s some free advice. You don’t need to exaggerate in order to make Autodesk’s treatment of customers look bad. Autodesk is doing a magnificent job of that without any help. The facts are enough. Also, if you have a great offer, just tell us what it is. OK?

Bentley marketers love Autodesk

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Bentley Systems marketers are currently taking advantage of Autodesk customers’ distaste for the Big A’s rent-or-GTFO business model.

For any Autodesk competitor, this is a fairly smart move. Autodesk has offered a free kick to its competitors and is betting on them all kicking the ball wide of the net. How accurate is Bentley’s shooting?

In this case, AutoCAD customers are being encouraged to take up MicroStation. Via the Cadalyst Direct opt-in advertising list, I received an email entitled AutoCAD Users, you need options. We listened:


Talk about feeling trapped (which has many Autodesk customers angry), options and flexibility (which Autodesk has removed) and listening (which Autodesk really sucks at) are clearly taking advantage of Autodesk’s self-inflicted subscription predicament.

“Work the way you want to” is only partly true. If you want to work with a pool of network licenses and not get unpleasant surprises in the way of excess-use invoices every so often, the Bentley Select licensing system may not be for you. Bentley has fixed some of the worst aspects of that system but it’s still controversial and unpopular.

It’s also stretching things to describe DWG as a natively supported format with no data conversions necessary. It’s true that MicroStation has supported open and save of DWG for some years, but as a secondary format. It’s not like BricsCAD, where DWG is the primary format and files can generally be seamlessly shared with AutoCAD users. I know from personal experience that DWG files originating in MicroStation cause a bunch of problems for AutoCAD users. I’ve had to write code to work around some of the issues.

Back to the marketing. The email, complete with imagery of a man cramped up in a cardboard box, pointed me to this page with a similarly confined woman:

With the cardboard box theme, it’s a good thing that Bentley isn’t marketing to cats. They would probably make ideal Autodesk customers.

So what’s the substance of the offer here?

If you own AutoCAD perpetual licenses, you can receive credit for the current value of your AutoCAD license toward the purchase of a MicroStation perpetual license.

 
That’s as specific as it gets: “credit for the current value of your AutoCAD license” could mean anything. Autodesk doesn’t sell software any more, so what’s the value of a license that has no current list price? You could have bought your AutoCAD 30 years ago for $2000 and spend $15000 keeping it up to date. How much credit do you get based on that value? 100%? 1%?

It’s an unknown discount off an unknown amount. What are the terms and conditions? Which AutoCAD releases and variants qualify? Do you get to keep your AutoCAD license? (Of course you do, Bentley can’t take it away from you, but they could have said so).

To fill in the gaps you’re expected to fill in a form and presumably get a quote. I bet most people will stop right there and close the browser window. I don’t know about you, but my interest in offers falls off dramatically when I can’t see what’s being offered.

I think Bentley has kicked the ball the wrong side of the post here.

When is a global offer not a global offer?

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Confusion reigned yesterday when my post on Autodesk’s “FY17 Q3 Global Field Promotion” assumed that Global meant what it said, and the offer made to me in Australia was the same as in other countries. That was a mistaken assumption, and I have updated the post to reflect that; my apologies for the confusion.

That said, it was a not entirely unreasonable assumption given the superficial similarity between offers worldwide and the following in Autodesk’s fine print in multiple global Autodesk sites:

Offer available from 7 August 2016 through 21 October 2016 worldwide with the exception of the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria

The situation is not that simple. There are two very different offers that look the same at first glance. People in some countries get a much better offer than others. The offer I discussed in yesterday’s post allows you to continue your ownership and use of the old perpetual license serial number you submit:

Can customers continue to use the perpetual license after they purchase the discounted 3-year subscription?
Yes, customers may continue to use the license they have submitted, however they may not submit the license a second time to receive a promotional discount.

Let’s call this offer A. From the Q&A section of the Australian offer page:
autodeskperpetualoffer01The offer available to most of the world is much weaker. You must trade in your old perpetual license serial number and not use the software any more, even after the rental period is over:

Can customers continue to use the perpetual license after they purchase the discounted 3-year subscription?
No. As part of the terms and conditions of this offer, the customer agrees to trade-in the eligible perpetual license serial number(s) and no longer use any seats associated with that serial number(s).

Let’s call this offer B. From the Q&A section of the Americian offer page:
autodeskperpetualoffer02Who gets which offer?

  • Australia and New Zealand gets offer A. Hong Kong, offer A. The Singapore offer is confusing because the expected “You get to keep your perpetual license” dot point is missing from the top of the page, but if you burrow down a little you will discover it is also offer A.
  • The Americas and Europe (mostly) get offer B.
  • The Russian, South African and Turkish sites have no apparent sign of either offer. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough.

So it looks as if only the Asia Pacific region currently gets offer A. I use the disclaimer “currently” because the Internet is not a fixed resource and things change. If you’re reading this post after October 21, you’ll probably find my links point to some completely different offers and things will get even more confusing.

Why do things differently in different places? In the past, Autodesk has used the Asia Pacific market experimentally for possible new marketing strategies, and I suspect that’s what’s going on here. My guess is that Autodesk is testing the waters in one major market to see if slashing prices and  letting people keep their perpetual licenses is enough to win significant numbers of customers over to rental.

Autodesk is entitled to make whatever offers it likes, wherever it likes. However, two different region-limited offers that look the same, both called a global promotion, and both carrying fine print saying they are available worldwide? That’s going to confuse people, even without my help.

When is AutoCAD not AutoCAD?

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When is AutoCAD nor AutoCAD? When it’s AutoCAD WS. But it’s not quite that simple.

I’ve been correcting people for months when they say things like “Project Butterfly is AutoCAD on the Cloud.” No, it’s not. It’s a DWG editor of sorts, but anybody who has used both will know that it’s not AutoCAD or anything like it. Although it’s useful for viewing and markup and is improving all the time, Project Butterfly is still very restricted and is likely to remain so for a long time. You wouldn’t want to spend a significant portion of your day drawing with it.

OK, so Project Butterfly isn’t AutoCAD. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. But wait! Now it is AutoCAD! AutoCAD WS, that is. AutoCAD WS is the recently-announced free iPod/iPhone/iPad app to access Project Butterfly. But it’s not really AutoCAD either, despite being named thus. Confused yet?

AutoCAD is Autodesk’s strongest brand name, but it has been diluted a great deal in recent times. Let’s have a look at things that are called AutoCAD or somehow based on AutoCAD, and try to make some sense of it all. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

  • AutoCAD – the real thing
  • AutoCAD Architecture – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Civil – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Civil 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Electrical – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD for Mac – AutoCAD with a few bits missing
  • AutoCAD Freestyle – a cheap and simple DWG editor, not much like real AutoCAD
  • AutoCAD Inventor Suite – this is basically Autodesk Inventor, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But a real AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical also comes in the box.
  • AutoCAD LT – AutoCAD with some features disabled to make it fit into a lower price bracket
  • AutoCAD Map 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Mechanical – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD MEP – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD OEM – development platform for using AutoCAD subsets as a basis for 3rd-party applications
  • AutoCAD P&ID – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Plant 3D – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD Raster Design – not AutoCAD, but adds features to AutoCAD and various AutoCAD-based verticals
  • AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite – Autodesk Revit Architecture, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture come in the box.
  • AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite – Autodesk Revit Structure, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD Structural Detailing comes in the box.
  • AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite – Autodesk Revit MEP, which is neither AutoCAD nor based on AutoCAD. But AutoCAD and AutoCAD MEP come in the box.
  • AutoCAD Structural Detailing – AutoCAD-based vertical
  • AutoCAD WS – not AutoCAD, but an iPod/iPhone/iPad app to access Project Butterfly
  • Autodesk Design Review – not AutoCAD, but a DWF viewer & markup tool, works with DWG TrueView to allow DWG markup
  • DWG TrueView – a very heavily cut-down AutoCAD to provide a free DWG viewer and release converter (includes DWG TrueConvert)
  • Project Butterfly – not AutoCAD, but rather a cloud/browser-based DWG viewer/editor

That’s a lot of products, but I haven’t even included all the various new suites that include AutoCAD. I’m not sure this plethora is such a great thing, leading as it does to customer confusion and brand dilution. When “AutoCAD” can mean almost anything, does it still really mean something?

It’s not easy being green (and believed)

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I know that some of you out there (unlike me) are pretty cynical about anything that Autodesk says on any subject. So when Autodesk makes a big thing about being environmentally responsible, such as its new Autodesk Sustainable Design Center site, it would be tempting to say “Yeah, right” and assume it’s just more spin to ignore.

That would be wrong. Yes, Autodesk is using its green credentials as a marketing tool. No, that doesn’t mean it’s all bovine excrement. Autodesk is genuine about this stuff. It’s being driven from the top, and it’s being driven hard.

How do I know? In addition to Autodesk backing up its assertions with a reasonable level of detail and independent scrutiny, I have a little first-hand knowledge. When I was attending the AutoCAD 2010 launch bloggers’ event last year, I was able to chat casually with quite a few non-marketing people. During those conversations, Autodesk’s move towards green issues was mentioned by more than one person, and in unscripted ways. It was clear to me that Carl Bass was serious about this and was strongly pushing a green culture within the company.

Disclosure: when attending the AutoCAD 2010 launch in February 2009, Autodesk provided transport, accommodation and some meals. Yes, I am fully aware of the irony of learning about Autodesk’s green culture only because it flew me half way round the world and back again.

Leech marketing by IMSI – Part 2 – A/CAD

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The IMSI free CAD product that it is putting up against AutoCAD LT has a very interesting name: A/CAD LT*. Does A/CAD sound familiar to anyone? I vaguely seem to remember some other CAD product with a very similar name. Hmm, let me think, it has a main program file called acad.exe and many other support files called acad.something, it has had its name abbreviated to ACAD by its users for decades… No, sorry, the name somehow eludes me.

I’m not a trademark lawyer (or any other sort), but here’s what I can tell from a quick glance at the USPTO site. It appears that Autodesk had ACAD registered as a trademark in 1986 with a first use in 1983, and that the registration was abandoned in 1987. It was registered again in 1988 and abandoned again in 1992. That may be an unfortunate lapse. I wonder what else may have slipped through the cracks?

Now there is an ACAD logo design registered to a certain ACAD Corporation of California (possibly unrelated), and a trademark application from IMSI, not yet approved. IMSI owns, and is actively using, the acadnow.com domain name. The IMSI advertising materials show the word A/CAD with a little TM after it, which indicates that they are claiming that they own the trademark, but it is not registered. The A/CAD packaging is, to me, rather too close to the style of the AutoCAD packaging. There’s even a Big Red A. Oh, sorry, it’s actually a big white A on a red background. That makes all the difference.

Given Autodesk’s history in using the courts to chase quarry as elusive as an unregisterable file extension that it never actually owned, and having a legal prod at competitors who dare to use orange rectangles in their marketing, what do you think are the chances that Autodesk’s hyperactive legal department is going to let this one slip by without a fight?

IMSI, if you’re going to compete, great. All power to you. But compete, don’t leech; it looks awful. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

While you might get some cheap** publicity (including from me), I’m afraid you miss out on the underdog sympathy factor when it looks like you’re actively trying to get sued. Finally, did you consider what happens when somebody tries to find your A/CAD product using Google? Didn’t think so.

* A/CAD LT Express is the full name of the currently marketed version.
** Excluding legal fees.

Leech marketing by IMSI – Part 1 – AU

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A while back, I received an email from IMSI, makers of TurboCAD. The information I gained from that email is now public knowledge thanks to an advertisement in AUGI World and other exposure, so I guess I can let you all in on it. Here it is:

Everyone knows AutoCAD is a fixture in our industry.

But is AutoCAD LT? When is the last time AutoCAD LT has really been pushed?

And how about working with Google SketchUp? Doesn’t seem like Autodesk is too keen on that.

Please join us for a special FIRST LOOK of a new CAD application — that is sure to surprise.

Email for appointment [removed]@imsidesign.com or call 1.415.[removed].

FIRST LOOK slots on Tuesday Dec 2nd through Thursday Dec 4th at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Regards,
Bob Mayer
Chief Operating Officer, IMSI/Design, LLC
Tel: 415-[removed]
Cell: 415-[removed]

P.S. For those that can participate, there will be a business card drawing for a Dell laptop — of course, loaded with our new CAD application. For all others, evaluation copies will be provided.

The date and location may seem strangely familar to those of you planning to attend Autodesk University in a week or so. So an Autodesk competitor is using the biggest Autodesk event of the year to market its wares.

In one way, this idea makes perfect sense. There will be a lot of Autodesk customers at that event, so that’s the place to be if you want to steal some.

In another way, it makes no sense at all. The Autodesk customers at AU are likely to be the most loyal customers there are. They have just invested a decent slab of money in attending a training event, one which is very well run, very enjoyable and generally likely to make them feel good about Autodesk. Yes, some of those customers may be disgruntled about some things, but I would wager that the average Autodesk customer is about as gruntled while attending AU as they are ever likely to be. Also, the average AU attendee has a very full calendar and is going to be struggling to find the time to visit a hotel room or whatever to look at something they can download anyway.

There’s another way in which this kind of thing makes no sense; tagging onto somebody else’s event is not a good look. It’s tacky when Bentley does it, it’s tacky when Autodesk does it, and it’s tacky when IMSI does it. Tacky, tacky, tacky. I’m happy to see competition for Autodesk from anybody; ultimately it can only be a good thing for Autodesk customers. But leech marketing? No thanks.

Matt Stein’s Blog and Microsoft’s Mojave Marketing

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Thanks to Shaan Hurley for revealing to the wider world the existence of Ribbon Man Matt Stein’s blog. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for a blogging n00b like myself to welcome somebody with a blog four years older than his own, but I’m going to do it anyway. Welcome, Matt (no pun intended).

Some of Matt’s blog posts (particularly the early ones) make for, er, interesting reading, so don’t click if you’re easily offended. Please bear in mind that this is a personal blog, not an Autodesk one.

Matt and I generally get on fine, but we have had some frank exchanges of view and often agree to disagree. One subject where we are unlikely to share the same views is the Microsoft Vista marketing exercise The Mojave Experiment. This is something I planned to post about some weeks ago but then something more important came up and I didn’t bother. Here’s what Matt thinks, and here’s what I think:

While this is a cute marketing ploy and might convince the terminally naive, it pretty obviously qualifies as propaganda rather than any kind of meaningful study. Here’s how it’s done:

Find a selection of people with no experience of a product but with ignorance-based negative feelings about it. Make sure the hardware and software you’re going to show them all works well. Fix up the settings for minimal annoyance. Present an expensively prepared, well-choreographed demo that presents all the best features and none of the worst. Result: oh wow, what a surprise, it’s better than they thought.

A marketing company could reproduce the same results with practically anything if they set it up right. I bet I could do it with Linux, OS X, Windows Me, whatever. Give me Microsoft’s resources and open slather to present things as fairly or unfairly as I like and I will hand you whatever results you request.

For the record, I don’t hate Vista. I have Vista and XP available, dual boot, on hardware that can easily cope with the demands. In my tests on that hardware, Vista runs AutoCAD significantly faster than XP. Vista has been reliable and it looks nice, but I use XP about 95% of the time. Why? A few minor annoyances, but mostly it’s because Vista doesn’t support my mouse fully. Is that Microsoft’s fault or Logitech’s? Who cares? It’s something I have to put up with when I use Vista, therefore I generally avoid using Vista. As Matt rightly points out, Vista has a lot of minor “nice to have” touches, but all of them added together don’t make it worth putting up with a partially functional mouse. Neither do they make it worth buying a new mouse.

Back to the marketing campaign, it reminds me of a productivity “study” paid for by Autodesk an age ago to show how much more productive Release 13 was than Release 12. It was released, accompanied by a poorly worded and deceptive press release (unintentionally deceptive, supposedly), to hoots of derision from a cynical AutoCAD user community. It convinced almost nobody and angered many, and was, all in all, a spectacularly bad idea.

Autodesk marketing people, if by any chance you’re thinking of repeating that old mistake, or even “doing a Mojave” with AutoCAD 2009, please don’t. Just don’t.