I have been writing about the fraudulent nature of the promises of any CAD (And CAM as far as that goes!) on the Cloud company for a couple of years now. My real interest began when Dassault decided they were going to gut the security of every one of their clients by forcing the use of the cloud. Or at least that was the stated intent at the time as they attempted to paint a pretty picture of how things would be for those foolish enough to buy into this. http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2011/01/41questionsaboutthecloud.html
Now I know I have discussed this at length before and I have quoted the above article before. But it bears repeating here that basically none of these questions have been directly answered by any CAD or CAM on the cloud company. I feel they know these are not solvable problems right now so rather than admit this they just won’t talk about it. Those of you in the real world outside of the corporate boardrooms might even go so far as to say deliberate deceptions would be the right term and I think so to. The idea that single threaded applications can’t work better in the cloud where there are hundreds of cores available for your use is swept under the carpet. Instead we hear the cloud is a wonderful thing and no one bothers to qualify what he says. Indeed if they were honest they would say that this CAD cloud thing is applicable to FEA and rendering only and is dependent upon your internet connection quality and has gobs of charges waiting in the back ground. That single thread is still that and what they offer does not fix this. But you can still rent hundreds of cores if you wish. And they will make sure it ends up costing you more in the long run because it is all about the money and not about you.
Every once in a while I see an article I consider quite powerful for the viewpoint I subscribe to regarding the cloud. Today I bring you one from Intel CIO Kim Stevenson. http://www.zdnet.com/intel-cio-kim-stevenson-on-big-data-openstack-women-in-it-7000014221/
I think it bears repeating a bit of it here.
“•Design: “Silicon design will never go out to the cloud. That’s our core IP,” said Stevenson. She added that no cloud service level agreement or chargeback would ever compensate for Intel’s intellectual property being leaked. Instead, product design runs on a high performance computing grid that’s internal.
•Manufacturing: Manufacturing is another area that won’t be put into the cloud. The information is housed in small data centers near the manufacturing site and later aggregated.”
Now I am going to ask publically of Dassault and Autodesk these questions.
If Intel can’t protect it’s data online how will you be able to do so?
If chargebacks won’t cover Intel’s proprietary information losses how can you cover CAD and manufacturing data losses for the customers you have and want to force onto the cloud?
Last but not least is why do the representatives from the top down from Dassault and Autodesk blatantly lie about and or ignore the various egregious aspects of the cloud and expect to get a free pass on this? Now I say they lie deliberately and with intent as I refuse to believe that all these things I find in public domain as news they are unaware of. Deliberate omission of information is after all a method of lying isn’t it? And they do refuse to make whole anyone using the cloud and their software from any damages that result. Read the TOS for Fusion 360 as an example. What is left is for CAD and CAM customers to start considering the integrity with which their CAD software suppliers are treating them. If you are using Dassault or Autodesk products and they force you to the cloud in any way to use their products they quite clearly have contempt for you as a customer and only see you as chattel dollar signs. If you are contemplating using ANY CAD or CAM program that forces your data to the cloud from anyone you are in jeapordy. I mention Dassault and Autodesk because their actions to force users into an insecure paradigm for whatever reason causes them to lead the charge here.
As a fine example of corporate deception and double speaking I present Autodesk’s Fusion 360 TOS. In particular pay attention to sections 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 and it tells you all you need to know of the integrity of Autodesk and how they will stand behind their customers. This is the current version from 3/13/13
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=21310328
For Dassault we have http://www.3ds.com/terms-of-use/ While I did not spend a whole lot of time digging I could find nothing on Mechanical Conceptual and I suppose this is because it is not out there yet for the public. But in any case pay attention to the weasel words in section 9. I am sure you will find them amusing as I did.
Is it any wonder with the integrity of the cloud service offering companies that Intel does not want their intellectual properties or their manufacturing data to reside there? I find these comments from Intel CIO Kim Stevenson to be incredibly revealing and directly damning against Dassault and Autodesk from an unimpeachable source they can’t contradict. The lawyers that Dassault and Autodesk employ agree totally with Kim Stevenson and thus these onerous evasions of responsibility from them to any customer who uses cloud based whatever from these guys.
An interesting commentary I read recently stated that when us old fuddy-duddy users who still believed in things like autonomy and personal control over our affairs, data and destiny were replaced by the young guys who were so electronically connected in every area of their lives and could care less about fuddy-duddy concerns this cloud would work. Work for who dare I ask? Somehow I think that when even these superior mentality uber-connected cutting edge near cyborg wannabes get screwed enough by these cloud companies they to will reject this mess. Nothing like a little real life medicine to cure naivety I always said and thus will die the current equivalent of the Dot Com frauds of the late 90’s.
Look people, in particular those of you with Dassault or Autodesk or considering them or any other CAD CAM company that would force you to the cloud. Can you afford to deal with companies that treat your lifeblood with such disdain? Intel clearly thinks not and so should you in my opinion.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
Section 9 is hooky but section 11 is the clincher.
“We reserve the right at any time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that We shall not be liable to You or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.”
So, put all your data up here and work using the cloud but if we decide we aren’t making enough money, well we just close shop and you don’t have access to your data anymore. Am I missing something here?
Hi Ryan,
Yes actually you did.
The cloud is good for every problem you have or ever may have and is secure and requires no IT staff and saves you money.
Please continue to look at the swinging watch.
The cloud is good for every problem you have or ever may have and is secure and requires no IT staff and saves you money.
Dave,
Thank you for posting this.
It should FINALLY awaken people like Oleg at Dassault who still preach how rosey the Cloud is.
Dassault and AutoDesk have failed miserably at convincing people and instead of saying,”the market doesn’t want our product”m have doubled down on stupid and are pushing forward regardless.
Look for announcements that both companies wont meet guidance in the near future.
They are still pushing a solution in search of a problem.
Ha-ha, poor Oleg. I met him at the Nashville SEU last year. He seems like an alright guy he has just made the mistake of believing in the cloud. I hope he made a lot of money when Inforbix sold out to Dassault. Though he may be right about the unimportant things on the cloud but design and manufacturing? No way. When you debate the topic of all the problems there are, like the ones on my list of forty questions, he will admit there are some problems but that technological problems can be solved and will be. Of course I subscribe to the idea that the bad guys will solve just as fast as the good guys and no one with valuable data should ever be exposing it online. I see Intel however agrees with me and not Oleg on design and manufacturing.
Dassault and Autodesk in their desire to control their customers and turn them into chattel is I believe the only reason they are pushing this. What a deal for them. Of course stopping piracy is I am sure part of it. But isn’t it convenient that loyal customers who pay for what they use are rewarded by lockin and higher fees and I figure much more technical trouble to. There is nothing there that speaks of a concern for customers and their reward will be I think a profound loss of customers until the MBA CPA types who have made this obscene paradigm their goal are fired and replaced with people that remember that at the end of the day the customer is king. I remember how well it worked for SpaceClaim when they first started.
Dave and all, thanks for brining my name in the conversation! As you know, there is no bad advertising – Google just count clicks :).
Just to make a correction – Inforbix was sold to Autodesk (not to Dassault). Getting back to the cloud topic you like so much, take a look on the numbers in this blog post – http://beyondplm.com/2012/12/04/plm-cloud-concerns-and-dropbox-reality-for-engineers/.
Engineers is the second category of people using dropbox. So,whatever Autodesk, Dassault and other vendors want, the problem is in people’s mind. They will be using cloud because it convenient and cheap. These are two things you cannot stop. Just my opinion. YMMV.
Best,Oleg
Hi Oleg, My bad on your new boss. I read your article and I left with an entirely different take on Dropbox and the cloud. From your article “However, here is a news for you, Mr. CIO. I don’t know if you are aware, but 34% of your engineering staff is placing data on the cloud in their Dropbox accounts. What is more surprising – half of them are aware they are doing it against the company rules.”
I read this as yet another type of breach of security controllable only by the prohibition of the use of the cloud and enforcing it by keeping corporate PC’s off line. So now add to all the other problems employee rebellion. Is it any wonder why Intel said what they said? Thanks for the heads up on another major problem courtesy of the cloud.
Oleg,
That was a typo in the post.
It should have said “Oleg and Dassault”.
Why I find amazing is that you continue to ignore the fact that none of the companies pushing the cloud actually allow THEIR Intellectual Property in the cloud.
AutoDesk doesn’t develop in the cloud.
Their IP PDM Vaults are NOT in the cloud.
AutoDesk has no intention of putting THEIR IP in the cloud.
Yet we are supposed to believe that the cloud is secure for OUR IP when using THEIR product?
I think not.
AutoDesk is completely hypocritical in this area and you should at least have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that.
Hey Tim, It was a mistake on my part and I thought Oleg was working for Dassault now. Interesting that Autodesk does not use what they promote for their customers. Do you have any source material you could forward me on this?
Tim and Dave,
As you probably know, Autodesk Fusion 360 product (cloud enabled 3D CAD system) is storing IP directly to the cloud. You can learn more here – http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=20884205&siteID=123112 .
Best, Oleg
Hi Oleg, I think what Tim means is that Autodesk is not storing their own product development core IP data on an external cloud. For instance can you tell us if Fusion 360 is being developed using an external server farm over the internet and the critical data resides and is worked on there? I would bet that Autodesk is not willing to do to them selves what they want their customers to do in this area. And if Autodesk is not doing this why not? Especially since they can save on buying computing hardware utilizing the unlimited core compute capabilities secure server farms and the high speed reliable internet connections to them Carl Bass likes to talk about so much. He has stated a number of times that everything is faster and better there so does Autodesk lead by example or not?
Dave,
You are exactly correct.
AutoDesk is pushing cloud storage on its customers but doesn’t use it for its won IP.
That’s blatantly hypocritical.
Tim and Dave, Autodesk is using Amazon public cloud and some other cloud services for development purposes. I hope it helps you to clarify the situation. Best, Oleg
Hi Oleg, This is not really an answer to the question asked though. Can you definitively state that the core IP that makes something like Fusion 360 work is done on the cloud from remote servers and that the core development of this program resides there and is developed there? Or is some of the work done on the cloud and the critical IP core of the program done off the cloud internally at Autodesk. Now I say Fusion 360 but really I am asking about any of the programs Autodesk authors.
Saying Autodesk uses the cloud for development purposes does not define exactly in what capacity they do so nor does it specify whether they choose not to do everything on the cloud. Could you please be more specific?
Oleg,
Is AutoDesk storing the AutoDesk Source Code for their products in the cloud?
I’d like your response because I already know the answer.
The answer, for those who may be interested, is No.
Autodesk does NOT store the source code for their products in the cloud.
The data is vaulted within Autodesk’s own isolated network.
They don’t because their Intellectual Property is too valuable to be stored in such an insecure infrastructure.
Autodesk says one thing publicly regarding the cloud and their customer’s IP and then does something completely different with their own.
The unvarnished truth is that Autodesk does not trust cloud technology to secure their own Intellectual Property.
If they don’t, you shouldn’t either.
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