Region is a major market for Autodesk

The overall market growth potential is double in the Middle East compared to developed countries, according to a senior official from design software firm Autodesk.

"We are here to look at our next phase of development and investment in the region," Mark Paraskeva, the newly appointed Vice-President for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa at Autodesk, told Emirates Business.

Annual income from the region now exceeds $1 billion (Dh3.67bn) – about 40 per cent of Autodesk's total global revenues.

What is the main purpose of your visit to this region?

It is about our renewed focus on the Middle East. We are here to look at our next phase of development and investment in the region. The overall growth of Autodesk is double in the region compared to the developed markets. This has always an important area for us. It is true that business here declined just like elsewhere. But results for the fourth quarter of 2009 improved and our outlook for the first quarter of 2010 is also showing signs of further improvement.

Your company seems to be aggressively pushing into the BIM (building information modelling) segment, which already has some very strong players. What will differentiate you from the others?

We started with the traditional 2D offerings about 27 years ago and then moved to 3D, which has a huge following all around the world. We then started offering BIM because that is where our clients can move as the next level of the building model in terms of details such as material composition, building cross sections, energy use and so on. Five years ago, BIM had low acceptance. But today, anyone thinking of doing the kind of complex projects you see in the Middle East will realise that using just the old 2D and 3D approach will no longer work here.

We are starting to build into the full model in BIM to see what you can do with the product, which can now be used for sunlight modelling studies, air flow studies and so on and give you actual data. For instance, if you change the orientation of a building by 10 degrees, you might be able to now radically change the heating or cooling loads for the building using all these inputs.

Hence this kind of simulation helps you get a feel of a prototype, which will let our customers experience the building on a computer before they use it. And they can use it throughout the life cycle from the beginning.

The models can also be used during the construction process where the sub-contractor can also see the process and get a better understanding on the project. Again, once the building is completed, you can use it for facilities management.

Affordability and user friendliness is what differentiates us from the rest of the industry. Our pricing is at a point where the customer can also get easy support through our channel partner, which is a very important ingredient so that there is no limit to who might pick up our product – be it international architects or an individual architect.

Which are the high growth markets that have picked up in this region?

The region is strong and getting back to a growth curve. Dubai might be a bit slower. But we are active in 14 to 15 countries in the region and they make up for the situation.

We have established a team in Egypt despite the economic situation since we see that as a sub-region like Libya. We are seeing strong growth for us in Saudi Arabia and are opening an office in Riyadh. We also see growth in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait and find that the market is reviving in a rather good way.

Have you changed your traditional target audience over the years?

We are in three markets and can see a slight shift. Architecture, engineering and construction [AEC], which is our main market, still constitutes 60 per cent of our turnover. We are also very active in the manufacturing market as well as in the film and games industry.

In fact, all the special effects in Avatar were done on Autodesk as with many other films. In a couple of markets we are seeing some interest in games. As a company, we have about 20 per cent of our investments in research and development and are constantly relooking at our products.

Are you looking at a different niche with the recent introduction of Homestyler, which targets an individual as opposed to your traditional Autodesk products that target architects and the construction sector?

There are two aspects to this. One is the technology aspect and the other is the segment aspect. The former is about new software as a service that our customers are starting to use through our website, which is the primary method to make our clients aware of new offerings. We see this as a complementary product where the customers are interested but are not willing to throw away their existing installed software.

As for the segment aspect, we are targeting the semi-professional market where someone might want to pick up a CAD tool and want to learn it to redo their kitchen. But there is no charge on it right now.

So would you look at pricing it at some stage?

It is not pricing but a question of business models. Say, for instance, Ikea might use it on their website and it might be available for their customers but they might not pay for it though Ikea might. Again, with what is happening on the web and social networking scene, we have to look at a whole new pricing model as against a traditional model.

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