ARES Kudo Is The New Name Chosen By Graebert
For Its Cloud-Based CAD Technology

Graebert revealed in April at COFES (the Congress On the Future of Engineering Software) its new DWG-based CAD platform. First introduced under its internal code-name the “Xenon project”, this full browser-based technology is now given its final name: “ARES Kudo”. We thought we could share with you in this article how we chose this name and why.

The genesis

After more than 3 years of efforts in research and development, ARES Kudo is now entering into production phase with the release of Onshape’s Drawing module. Onshape is the first partner of Graebert leveraging from this new full browser-based technology. Both companies actively collaborated to offer a seamless integration between Onshape’s 3D environment and Graebert’s drafting features.

Graebert is now actively exploring other partnerships and will further reveal its strategy in October at the Graebert Annual Meeting. It was about time to publicize the final name of its CAD technology for Cloud.

A brand for the next generation of CAD

With ARES Kudo, Graebert has the ambition to offer CAD developers the easiest and fastest path to the Cloud. Graebert is not only migrating to the Cloud a full set of tools to create and edit DWG files like on the desktop. ARES Kudo will offer also the same API allowing any developer to migrate easily the programs he may have already created on Windows.

As a result, the name given to this technology had to reflect at the same time (i) the launch of a new generation and (ii) the continuity with Graebert’s other CAD software: ARES Commander (Windows, Mac, Linux) and ARES Touch (Android). We decided, therefore, to keep the first name ARES and add a surname showing its Cloud DNA.

ARES Cloud? ARES Neo?

We wanted a name easy to remember in all languages and short. The name ARES Cloud seemed too obvious and not very unique.

“Neo” seemed quite attractive because it was both very short and conveying this idea of the “next generation” but we had also the strange feeling that this name was already strongly associated with the movie “Matrix”. Although many of us loved the movie, it was already in a sense more than 15 years old…

ARES Kudo: the “school of the open mind”

We kept thinking about it and finally found “Kudo”. We loved the sonority and conducted a research about its meaning in different cultures.

We already knew that “Kudo” or “Kudos” is, first of all, a term frequently used in forums and social networks to congratulate someone. It comes from the ancient Greek “Kudos” used to give praise and honors for an achievement. This was a great name for a cloud-based product: collaboration and simultaneous editing are among the key interests of Cloud. Collaboration is also at the heart of Graebert’s business as a significant share of our revenue comes from OEM partnerships with industry partners such as Dassault Systèmes, Corel or Onshape that use our CAD technologies in their solutions.

Searching further we also learned that “Ku-do” in Japanese could be translated as “the school of the open mind”. Our Japanese partners even told us that “Kudo” could sound like a contraction of the Japanese world “Kuraudo” that is simply our equivalent for the word… “cloud”! Graebert has been considerably expanding its activities in Asia over the last years and this sounded also as a perfect match. As a side note, we found “Kudo” is also a new martial art described as an evolution of Karate.

In only 4 letters, Kudo was, therefore, summarizing Graebert’s ambitions for Cloud and the key values of collaboration on the internet. We hope you will like this name as we do and invite you to take a first look at this new CAD platform on Graebert’s lab website: gcadlabs.com

 About Graebert

Graebert is a leading developer of CAD software, solutions, and services — recognized as a true innovator in the CAD industry. Graebert has over 30 years of expertise, its DWG-based CAD software was the first to run on Windows®, Mac® and Linux®. Graebert is also a pioneer in mobile CAD technologies, first on Windows and now Android®.

More recently Graebert announced a full DWG-based CAD platform for the Cloud. Graebert‘s product portfolio is anchored by ARES Commander — a powerful, DWG-based CAD software with 2D and 3D modeling capabilities — which also enables developers to create standalone CAD applications. Overall, more than 7 million professionals use Graebert’s CAD technologies in 100+ countries. Visit www.graebert.com to learn more about Graebert.