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| Architosh News Reports | |
| Architosh Staff ([email protected]) |
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Mac CAD News: VectorWorks grows faster on Windows
Diehl Graphsoft is reporting record year-end revenues, according to a press release. The maker of the ever popular general CAD program MiniCAD (which is now named VectorWorks and is at version 8.0) announced record revenues of $7.98 Million for fiscal year '99 versus $7.36 Million for fiscal year '98 -- an increase of 8.3 percent. Net income was $1.07 Million or $0.35 per diluted share for '99, based on 3,144,326 average weighted diluted shares outstanding. The company's financial position remains strong with working capital increased by 8.4 percent to $9.07 Million. The company had, on May 31, 1999, over $8.9 Million in cash and marketable securities equivalent to $2.90 per share.
Richard Diehl, President and CEO, said that revenues over the previous year largely came from new customers, although upgrades to VectorWorks played a large share in revenue as well. The company's new rendering program extension to VectorWorks, called RenderWorks added approximately 8 percent to base revenue for the full year. The program was introduce only last January at Macworld in San Francisco. An important note about the state of the Mac platform in AEC can be gleaned from a statistic in Diehl Graphsoft's market breakdowns. Richard Diehl remarked that for their CAD products (which constitute their largest product lines) the Windows market increased about 22.5 percent while sales on the Macintosh side were slightly down. No Macintosh percentage was given for this decline. Mr. Diehl mentioned that part of that was because of the shift by some Macintosh customers to Windows. In his words:
While it appears that more Macintosh users opted to purchase RenderWorks than Windows users, VectorWorks growth on the Mac side is actually flat or down. He also noted that:
"The VectorWorks introduction was easily the most significant Company event of the year. It has become our new core product and will be the linchpin in our revised developmental and marketing strategy for introducing a portfolio of complementary 'value-based 'software in the mid-price range by offering vertical products to specific market sectors, while maintaining our reputation for their user-friendly characteristics which have played an important role competitively for the Company." While VectorWorks has surely taken off for Diehl Graphsoft, expanding their market position in the Windows world, the product apparently slowed down on the Macintosh side. Hopefully, with new Windows marketshare now driving key aspects of their growth, Diehl Graphsoft will "remain" focused on advances in the Macintosh operating system and look for new ways to improve VectorWorks across both platforms -- using "best-of-breed" Apple technologies like QuickTime 4, AppleScript and newer industry standards like OpenGL. Some of this news, while surely positive for Diehl Graphsoft, may seem negative for Macintosh AEC and Mac CAD. MiniCAD VectorWorks has largely dominated the general and architectural CAD market for the Macintosh platform. Yet without statistics one can not assume too much about the state of Macintosh in the CAD and AEC space. For more information and financial details, read the press release.
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