In February, the world leader in computer-aided design (CAD) systems, the American company Autodesk, banned Russian companies from using its software products. Leaving aside the legal significance of such a ban for companies that have purchased the appropriate licenses, in this situation it is more important than Russian designers will replace software that will be rejected sooner or later.
The Western trail
At the end of March this year, Autodesk informed all its Russian partners about the ban on the use of its products, referring to the 12th package of economic sanctions, which entered into force on January 1. Back in 2014, Autodesk restricted its work with Russian companies, and officially announced the termination of its work in Russia in 2022.
Autodesk emerged as a startup founded in 1982 in California by a group of 13 programmers who raised $60,000 from their personal savings to get started, and eventually turned into a global company. Autodesk software has been widely used in many industries, including the automotive, shipbuilding, and aviation industries, industrial and architectural design, construction, prosthetics, and so on.
Autodesk came to Russia in the early 2000s and immediately took a significant share of the Russian market. By the time it was shut down, it held the largest share in the construction segment, up to 80-90%, and about 30% in the engineering sector.
“Autodesk has a wide range of products that have been used by Russian designers and engineers from various fields: from industrial production and mechanical engineering to the architectural and construction sector. Autodesk products were also used to work with animation, graphics, and virtual reality creation,” says Evgeny Shuvalov, CEO of renga Software. According to him, Autodesk’s strongest positions were in construction design.
However, since Autodesk’s final departure was predictable, in practice there is no need to talk about a critical situation even in the construction industry.
“Two years ago it was critical. “But over these two years, the share of Russian software has increased,” says Mikhail Viktorov, head of the Commission on Digitalization of the Construction Industry and Housing and Communal Services of the Public Council under the Ministry of Construction of Russia, President of NOTIM. – The residual trace of the western one will be present in the construction equipment market for several more years, but its share has already decreased quite a lot. Russian analogues have appeared on the market.”
Alternative solutions
As Evgeny Shuvalov says, the solutions that are now replacing the departed Autodesk products have been on the Russian market for a long time. They were available before, “but remained in the shadow of a well-known foreign vendor.”
“It is not difficult to replace Revit, Autodesk’s BIM (Building information model) product today. There is a Russian Renga Professional BIM system on the market that is functionally equivalent to a foreign one. There are many examples of a successful transition from foreign solutions to Renga — this was done by the companies ks-development, ProGorod (part of VEB.Russian Federation) and so on. The transition to Russian solutions is going well both technically and organizationally,” says Evgeny Shuvalov. One of the advantages of domestic software is that Renga Professional implements a mechanism for several specialists to work together on a single project, which is not available in Revit.
Russian developments such as COMPASS-3D and COMPASS Graphics have become alternatives to AutoCAD products. And the BIM 360 and NavisWorks solutions (owned by Autodesk) can compete with the Russian Pilot-BIM development.
“The animation industry uses some of Autodesk’s products to create 3D animations and visual effects. The 3D animation platform developed by our company with a grant from the Russian Federation can already be partially replaced by Autodesk software,” says Vladimir Nikolaev, General Producer of Animation Studio Voronezh. He clarifies that what is created on their basis is universal and can be adapted for the production of any content with computer graphics — from the creation of films with special effects, video games, commercials, ar / vr applications to the development of “digital twins” and applications in industrial design.
“Today, our products almost completely replace Autodesk developments. The needs of Russian civil engineering in liblo software are fully covered by its own software, liblo is in the process of being finalized and will soon finally close all consumer requests,” says Mikhail Bocharov, Deputy General Director for Science at Sisoft Development. According to his estimates, in Russia, more than half of companies have switched to domestic software in design. The rest of the libs are in the process of transition, using both domestic and foreign software.
However, despite the increasing number of alternative foreign software, their quality does not always meet the needs of the consumer. Among other things, our analogues still need to grow in functionality, says Mikhail Viktorov: “In some ways, our developments are stronger and more convenient. But often users’ complaints are related to their habits towards certain functionality, a family of plug-ins, and so on.”
Construction drivers
“Design is massively switching to Russian software as soon as information models in domestic formats are needed by builders. The latter are still largely disoriented, but it passes very quickly. It will be more difficult for those who have invested heavily in Western software and not only acquired many licenses, but also created their own digital ecosystem by introducing Western software there. Of course, they really want to turn everything back, but this will not happen, and they will have to make difficult decisions,” predicts Mikhail Bocharov and concludes that domestic software has generally replaced Autodesk products. However, we are not talking about replacing the entire product range — there is no urgent need for this.
An incentive for Russian developers may also be the mandatory use of TIM (information modeling technology) for the construction of new residential complexes in Russia from July 1, 2024, and it will be prohibited to build housing without digital control from January 1, 2025.
Mikhail Bocharov notes that in organizations such as Stroynadzor, Rosreestr, Rosexpertiza and others related to the organization of construction, the share of Russian is CONSTANTLY growing. There are already ready-made cases, for example, the project management information system (ISMS), which do not fit into the concept of Open BIM (a system for combining projects and various representations of buildings into a consistent model; a technology that allows design participants to interact, regardless of the software used), so even the return of autodesk will not allow this company to regain its former positions on THE MARKET.
The development and implementation of the Russian product is hampered, as usual, by a lack of funding, says Mikhail Viktorov. Although, according to him, the market for design solutions capable of replacing the departed Autodesk is actually growing — currently the market share is up to 12-14% per year compared with the previous market share of 2-3%.
He believes that the pace could be accelerated by subsidizing up to 50% of the cost of purchasing “boxed” products. “This would significantly increase the share of Russian software in the domestic market and provide a wide range of users not only through large design institutes and holdings, but also a number of medium and small enterprises,” he believes. – I think that government agencies can become task managers with appropriate financing for the development of potentially massive products. Therefore, the grant system and increased funding for our developers must be continued, because it is very expensive and skilled work. Especially in conditions of personnel shortage.”
Sources:
https://www.normacs.info/news/74388
https://proinfosoft.ru/news/2024/april/rossijskie-kompanii-perexodyat-na-otechestvennyie-alternativyi-autodesk
https://expert.ru/promishlennost/autodesk-ostavil-rynok-proektirovaniya-rossiyskim-igrokam/
