This was a good idea when I recommended it mid-1988. It would have been seen, in retrospect, as an enormously shrewd strategic move had we implemented it as we'd discussed around the time the dollar hit its peak in 1989. It's still the wisest course, in my opinion, as the dollar plunges to new daily lows.
This is not a speculative strategy designed to profit from exchange rate instabilities. It is not a bet against the future of the United States. It is simply a prudent and appropriate deployment of the liquid assets of a multinational company which derives close to half its sales and a majority of its recent growth from markets outside the United States.
Once we implement effective currency diversification, we can ignore all the headlines about the dollar plunging and soaring. We'll know that Autodesk's ability to compete in each of its markets is unaffected by such news. As long as an overwhelming percentage of our assets are concentrated in one currency, we're held hostage to the monetary policy of the central bank that controls it. Given the experience of the last two decades, this is simply unwise.