Russian national platform or Microsoft?

Couple weeks ago, Russian IT and Internet community was very (positively) excited by a new Russian  Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. 

Nikolai Nikiforov is only 30, until recently whole career of this graduate from Kazan university was within Internet. Nikolay is known by a successful implementation of the 4G LTE in Tatarstan region and by practical progress of the installment of electronic government solutions in the region.   

Today, the Russian daily VEDOMOSTY announced that Mr Nikiforov rejected an earlier existing project of implementation of the Russian national OS (probably based on Lunix). The new minister strongly believes that a much more pragmatic approach is to make a special strategic deal with Microsoft assuming special prices, application of cloud technologies for governmental services, and other. The negotiations with Microsoft has already begun. According to VEDOMOSTY, Nikiforov's decision resulted in a conflict in his ministry and resignations of some people who believe that Russia is capable (due to qualification of its specialists) and obliged (due to the national security reasons) to develop its own OS and basic platform.  

My personal opinion is that yes, it's true that Russia is potentially capable and probably obliged to implement its own platform but it does not mean that such a project can actually be efficiently organized, financed, managed, industrially implemented, installed, reliably maintained,  and so on. Which means that, maybe unfortunately, Microsoft provides more efficiency and national security for Russia...    

About Mr Nikiforov (English)

Source from VEDOMOSTY (Russian) 

Direct modeling and armored troop-carrier

A news about Bricscad V12 which has brought direct modeling to Linux was couple days ago exhaustively promoted by a Bricsys news, posts by Ralph Grabowski and Deelip Menezes, and certainly by many others. You will not be too much surprised by my impulse to proudly remind that the underlying technology came from LEDAS - as it was formally fixed by a Bricsys-LEDAS deal from the last October.

According to that deal, a team of former LEDAS developers headed by Dmitry Ushakov, joined Bricsys software development ecosystem in the guise of a Bricsys daughter establishment - a newco called Bricsys Technologies Russia (BTR). BTR team is currently renting a part of the LEDAS offices so that both teams, although definitely working separately, can fruitfully and friendly contact.

Now I have a kind of linguistic task: to explain you a title of this post and a meaning of the picture hanging at the door of the BTR office:

Well, as you can see, the picture shows an ATC (armored troop-carrier) which in Russian is "BroneTranspoteR" (bronya = armor) - known to everyone with native Russian as BTR. Judging by a series of Bricscad V12 releases, this BTR-image is much inspiring for Bricsys Technologies Russia which is very fruitfully contributing to the recent and future results of Bricsys.

A linguistic aspect is sometimes much easier, for example, take a look at another door: the compass hints that it is about the LEDAS  project related to KOMPAS 3D of ASCON.   

Bricscad Enters 3D Solid Modeling for Mechanical Design Market. A Long Interview with Erik De Keyser

isicad had a chance to interview Erik De Keyser, founder and CEO of Bricsys - the company which positions itself as at least a leader of the world of AutoCAD analogues. My conclusion: Erik wants to go much further.

Here are the questions:

-You position your main product – Bricscad – as the number one DWG CAD alternative. What are your advantages over competitors?

-What industries cover your solutions? Who are your customers?

- Is the Russian market important for you? What are your plans here?

- How long are you in the CAD business? Please describe in brief your background and Bricsys history.

- Bricscad is a platform for application developers – there are over 170 third-party products based on it. How do you support third-party developers?

- Previous versions of Bricscad were based on the IntelliCAD platform. Why have you left the ITC?

- Recently you released Bricscad for LINUX. Do you plan to enter the Mac OSX or maybe the iOS (iPad) markets?

- Your second product – Vondle – a document and data management system, is based on the SaaS business model. Are you planning to use the same model for Bricscad?

- In the latest version of Bricsys Platinum you introduced 3D parametric solid modeling. Did existing users request this functionality or are you planning to attack new markets with it?

- Last summer Dassault Systemes released its free DWG CAD (DraftSight). Has it impacted your business? (asked and answered before SWW 2011)

- What are your plans for the next years?

For detailed and open Erik's answers visit the paper at isicad.net.

All about AutoCAD for Windows, Mac, Linux, clouds, and other

On 7 October, Vladimir Malukh by skype interviewed Miikka Arala, EMEA Industry and Marketing Development Manager at Autodesk.

Ten questions were about:

- CAD as SaaS

- 3D parameterization for AutoCAD

- Direct modeling for AutoCAD

- AutoCAD: Windows vs Mac

- AutoCAD for Linux

- Mac/Linux vs cloud-based

- Handy multi-touch functionality

- AutoCAD and conceptual design

- AutoCAD and stereo display

- Will DS entering DWG-business impact AutoCAD marketing and pricing?

See full English and Russian texts of the interview.