Autodesk to acquire PTC

nick_papageorge_dayjob · July 10

I hope it doesn't go through. Not good for PTC products, IMO. We'll end up with junk websites and junk software, IMO.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/autodesk-weighs-takeover-engineering-software-firm-ptc-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-07-09/

Derek_Van_Allen_BD · July 10

Those are the guys that killed 123D Make and replaced it with nothing. They need to keep their hands off of Onshape and stop killing my favorite tools.

MDesign · July 10

FWIW they didn't kill Revit. But the industry needed Revit like nobody's business. Unfortunately users still use it like 2D non parametric cad too often.

S1mon · July 10

Frightening. While there are some useful things that could help Onshape, there’s also the risk of someone high up looking at Fusion and Onshape and killing one or combining them in some abomination. They won't kill Creo or Arena, but this is scary.

MDesign · July 10

From a business standpoint it makes sense for Autodesk to absorb (or kill) the competition to collect on more Fusion (or whatever) subscriptions.

wayne_sauder · July 10

This seems like it would lead to something, likely not very beneficial to onshape users.

Derek_Van_Allen_BD · July 10

It's hard to see news like this in an optimistic lens because even if I acknowledge the breadth of tools Autodesk offers and some of the generative design or reverse engineering suite they could bring to the table for a product like Onshape, their whole pricing model compartmentalizes everything in a way that you never have access to the full suite of tools. That's a lesson that game devs learned years ago is that you do not want to segment your live userbase into sub-chunks of pay-to-play tiers with different access levels to the product because you'll hemorrhage players to your competitors who aren't doing so.

MichaelPascoe · July 10

aeromorrison · July 10

An acquisition from Autodesk would be my worst nightmare. I've never really had a lasting positive experience with Autodesk on anything…ever.

adrian_vlzkz · July 10

göte_berggren · July 11

A true nightmare!

bill_schnoebelen · July 11

Fushape

bryan_lagrange · July 11

Develop 3D has an article

https://develop3d.com/cad/first-noises-of-an-autodesk-takeover-of-ptc-surface/

nick_papageorge_dayjob · 6:24PM

When PTC bought Onshape, it took it from startup funding to huge corporation funding and resources. Looking back, it seems it was a win-win for both OS and PTC.

Autodesk and PTC are about the same size company, however. They are the same order of magnitude. PTC is 23BB, Autodesk is 60BB. Roughly 3 times as big, not the 10x or greater when companies are in different ballgames. Except for Siemens, the other 3 CAD companies are roughly the same range of market cap. Siemens of course has many more businesses than the other 3.

My point is it seems a stretch for Autodesk to overtake/buy a company that is 1/3rd its size.

steve_shubin · 9:26PM

Back in 2017, when at a stage in life when I wasn’t doing much CAD, and was just looking for something to play with on my mobile device, I typed in CAD for iPhone into my search engine and came across Onshape.

Though I’ve had a number of CAD programs over the years that had limited parametrics, none of these were parametric to the extent of Onshape or Solidworks. So this was my intro to true parametrics

Though my use of CAD has gone back up, it never reached a point where I would add a MECHANICAL parametric modeler to my arsenal as my main focus has always been architectural, and as such, I could not rationalize paying for Onshape on top of what I am paying for dedicated architectural CAD software. So I’ve limited my use of Onshape TO THAT OF LEARNING what I call true parametrics, and have had a lot of fun in doing so. By the way, I’ve never gone through any of the courses that Onshape offers as the program was intuitive enough, on top of the forum giving access to others documents, which was a great way to see how others went about making parts. So for showing me what parametrics implemented in a smart manner is all about, I want to thank Onshape for that.

Back in the early 90’s, I made a serious effort to get onboard with Autodesk. But a visit to one of the few dedicated Autodesk company stores, in one of the largest U.S. metro areas, kept me from doing that.

Was ready to pay cash for Autocad. Expecting to pay $3200 or so, but couldn’t even get so much as a salesperson to walk up to me and ask what I want. Just a receptionist who didn’t give me much of an answer either. They probably were only interested in large corporate accounts at the time. So I ended up getting a program called formZ which was a pretty advanced modeler for the time.

My interest in CAD keeps going on. Surprisingly, I am currently very interested in and have added a newer DIRECT modeler on top of my other architectural CAD software, as this relatively new piece of software reminds me of the excitement I had for the UNCLUTTERED yet powerful interface that I experienced with Onshape. Though not parametric, the direct editing is so amazing that I find myself enthralled with the program.

Now I wouldn’t expect most users here to feel the same as this is a piece of software that is limited as to manufacturing of parts and such. Nonetheless, it has a very intelligent interface that is one of the easiest things to remember, especially when compared to my architectural CAD software that has commands placed all over a very involved interface, which makes it almost impossible to remember where everything is.

Though not a fan of AutoDESK, I hope things work out well for all you folk if things do move in that direction.

Out of curiosity, I typed in the following into Google search ———-

Google give me examples of smaller companies that have bought larger public companies

Autodesk to acquire PTC

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