Autodesk Inc. on Tuesday announced a slew of software suites, part of a new sales strategy meant to boost revenue and make it easier for customers to use its applications in tandem.
The world leader in 3d design company unveiled six new suites of design and presentation software for product manufacturing, architecture, construction and other fields. Autodesk unveiled an additional new software suite for animation and visual effects in gaming, film and television earlier this month.
Each suite will be sold at three pricing tiers based on the number of features included, the company said. The packages will range in price from $4,300 to $13,000. Autodesk will begin taking orders for the suites on Tuesday and start shipping the software in April.
The announcement represents a major shift in strategy for Autodesk, said Amar Hanspal, the company's senior vice president of platform solutions and emerging business. Traditionally, the majority of its software has been sold as individual products, with software bundles comprising around 24% of its revenue in the quarter ended Jan. 31.
Mr. Hanspal said the suites are meant to drive customer adoption by making the company's conceptualization, modeling and visualization software work better together. Autodesk also is testing Web-based applications for collaboration and analysis that it expects eventually to offer exclusively to customers of its software suites, Mr. Hanspal added.
The suite strategy "is our number one priority for the year," he said, adding that it also should boost Autodesk's profit margins over time by streamlining sales and marketing costs.
Goldman Sachs analyst Derek Bingham said the strategy shift could prove a big boon to Autodesk. "It's historically a winning strategy in software," the analyst said, noting the previous success of software packages such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite. "There are people who will buy stuff that they might not otherwise have bought," he said.
Mr. Bingham said Autodesk has told analysts it expects the strategy to help increase its revenue per individual user by 20% over the next two to three years, though Mr. Hanspal declined to confirm that figure.
The announcement comes at a key time for Autodesk, which has seen its share price rise 40% over the past year to $40.97 in 4 p.m. trading on Monday, as manufacturing, construction and other customer segments begin to recover from the recent recession. The company's revenue grew 16% in the quarter ended Jan. 31 to $528 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment