A silver lining: celebrating 25 years of design innovation.(CAD)(dialogue with Amar Hanspal of Autodesk Inc.)(Interview)

It's been 25 years since Autodesk first introduced its AutoCAD software, forever changing the way engineers and designers do their work. Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk, looks at how this software revolutionized an industry.

Q With this year marking 25 years for Autodesk and its flagship product, AutoCAD, can you provide us with a snapshot of the industry back in 1982?

A The CAD industry consisted mainly of very high end systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars and required expensive software and training, along with an IT staff to set up and run. (Imagine running SAP for a one-person firm.) Only the larger companies could afford the expensive CAD systems and training that was available then. With the advent of the PC, an opportunity to build applications that were more affordable and less IT-intensive became viable. Unlike a spreadsheet or word-processing program, running CAD on a personal computer was very computationally intense. At that time, there weren't any graphical interfaces or graphics cards; these were the days of DOS.

AutoCAD was written from the ground up to take advantage of the new PC revolution. It offered a graphics system that could be run and supported without requiring an IT professional, so small to midsize businesses could now benefit from the same capabilities as larger firms. The program also created a system of value-added resellers and developers that helped customers take advantage of the open architecture and APIs of the early AutoCAD versions.

Q How did the industry initially respond when Autodesk launched AutoCAD?

A The traditional CAD industry's first response to the introduction of AutoCAD was that the early PC CAD products were toys. The theory was that the CAD programs could only be run on a very sophisticated machine. However, when it launched at COMDEX 1982, AutoCAD garnered a great amount of interest, not only from CAD customers, but also from the PC industry as a whole. The software was a proof point in support of the viability of the democratizing power of the PC. At that time, it was already apparent that CAD would be a serious productivity tool for the industry.

Q AutoCAD has served as the foundation for some of the industry's innovative products and solutions. Was this the expectation from the start?