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Autodesk's technological leadership

I believe that cyberspace is the only technology which is a serious contender to define the next generation of user interaction. Today, Autodesk is faced with the challenging task of finding effective ways for users to manipulate three dimensional models while conforming to the conflicting standards of numerous competing fifth generation graphical interfaces. This job is made difficult because of the lack of standards and by the inherent difficulty of trying to work on a 3D problem through a 2D window.

If Autodesk establishes itself as the leader in exploring cyberspace, and is forthright in identifying its effort as explicitly attempting to invent the next generation of user interaction, we will to a large extent transcend the quibbles over conformance with the last generation of user interface standards (which is not to say that we can ignore them, nor that Autodesk need not continue to upgrade our products' interfaces in conventional ways). The cyberspace project will be a technology flagship, demonstrable in all forums in the near term, which will clearly position Autodesk as a leader in technology and innovation in our core business, 3D design, just at the time when our marketing effort will be aimed at making Autodesk a peer of the big CAD companies. For years those companies have been defending their territory by enumerating things that we couldn't do. Isn't it time we simply superseded them by developing the next generation of interaction and causing it to be identified with our products just as strongly as the fifth generation interface has become identified with Apple?


Editor: John Walker