Graebert, a German developer of Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) software, is entering the Indian market through its wholly owned subsidiary. Heena Jhingan discusses with Wilfred Graebert, CEO, Graebert, the company’s strategy and the opportunities it sees
What inspired you to launch ARES in India?
Our CAD package ARES is one of the fastest growing solutions with about 4 million installations across 180 countries. Since we have OEM contracts with companies like Dassault, Corel and others, we have not been able to garner much visibility. Now we plan to sell our product under our own brand. We have our development centers in Russia, Germany and one in India (Noida). In this space, there are some very strong players in the US market, and for a newcomer like us, it could be very hard to beat them. So, we decided to start selling the solution under our brand in countries where the competition is not so stiff. In India, we are looking at a phased soft launch, beginning July.
Where do you see new opportunities emerging in the CAD space, which is perceived to be a mature market?
About three years back, we would have agreed that this is a mature market, but with the arrival of trends like the Android platform and mobility, everything has changed. Technologies have to undergo major changes to keep up with these trends. We have extensive experience of developing solution for handheld devices, and we offer operating system independent solutions. We perhaps, are the only platform agnostic CAD package that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. We will also release the Android version of the solutions early next year. We will then have the full opportunity. We will explore what the businesses in India expect from us.
What is your strategy for the India market?
We are looking at working with the reseller partners with CAD experience, especially the people who are developing add-on applications on CAD platforms. Besides, we will also test the market around price. Our solution being in the range of under $600 bracket is quite popular in developed markets. We would also like to introduce an app store and through that we can offer third party developers a sales channel by its own. So, if somebody uses ARES he can check on the app store if there is an application available that specializes in mechanical, electrical or any other architectural functionality. We believe that access to these kinds of developers through our CAD software can revolutionize the market on the lower end.
3D modeling is emerging as a big trend, but you chose to focus on 2D. How do you plan to stay competitive?
There is an opportunity in 3D space, but there are larger numbers of users involved in 2D detailing before the design moves in to the factory. It is here where the solution needs to be cost-effective as there is a mass market involved. Typically there are few 3D and many 2D seats. We do basic 3D modeling, we use the same tools as the major players in 3D space, but we do not do full blown 3D designing. SolidWorks is a leader in 3D mechanical software and they do it well. They sell our 2D package with their offering. In stead of fighting with them on 3D software front, we decided to work with them. We believe that we can influence the market by higher volumes in terms of number of seats, though not by revenue.
What are the new trends on the CAD landscape?
The users are today are more demanding, driving the solutions toward greater innovations. The modeling processes are no more static. Users are investing in solution that help them create information models, connecting every possible detail about the drawing, making it more powerful, richer and more complete. It is not just about the designing the product, but its complete life cycle. The users expect the solution to have a longer life, so that it can support the product through its life.
Integration of location based application to the drawing and database is another interesting trend in the offing. These are add-on applications and we do not do all of these yet, and will depend on specialized third party partners to do this for us. At present, we are closely observing Apple in the market. About 10% of our users are Mac users, for us there is no other competition here other than Autodesk. However, Autodesk is about a $3000-$3500 product whereas we sell a $600 product, and we will see how well this will do in India.
The big shift we see is in terms of adoption of handheld devices and cloud computing. Files are being viewed, edited and shared on the move.
