• Graebert revealed new capabilities for ARES Kudo ( kudo.graebert.com ),
  its industry-leading Cloud-based CAD Solution for DWG drawings.
• Graebert calls CAD developers to leverage from the ARES Kudo platform to take a head start with the Cloud technology and strongly differentiate from their competition.
• The introduction of the CLOUDify Pack for ARES Commander OEM enables the developer to start immediately creating value for their existing desktop users with cloud-powered features.

The SaaS transformation is already significantly reshaping the CAD software industry. Multiple new players are emerging and major investments are made in research & development or acquisitions. As a matter of fact, the SaaS transformation is now a strong priority for a large number of end-users. According to the IDC SaaS View 4Q18 survey (October 2018, 2902 companies), a total of 72% of IT Managers would give preference to a SaaS solution:

● 21% of them responded “all new applications are SaaS first”
● 29% that they have a “company-wide initiative to increasingly migrate applications to SaaS
models”
● 22% that they will “evaluate moving applications to SaaS models when software contract renew

The Subscription Economy Index (Zuora, October 2019) shows that SaaS companies have been growing three times faster in sales than the non-SaaS Software companies of the S&P 500 index.

SaaS companies have been growing on average by 22.3% per year in sales over the last two years. The question is no longer if or when to migrate to Cloud but how. Still, another report from the Synergy. Research Group shows that the SaaS solutions currently represent a 15% market share to be compared with 85% market share for traditional desktop software.

Cédric Desbordes, Business Development & Marketing Director from Graebert commented: “ The CAD industry is facing the challenge to start immediately investing in Cloud without neglecting their existing on premises solutions. The SaaS transformation will inevitably take several years, most likely more than 10 years. Graebert aims at solving this equation with its Trinity concept combining DWG-editing solutions for Desktop, Cloud, and Mobile. ”

“We are not shy to say that Graebert’s ARES Kudo technology is years ahead from any competition” claimed Wilfried Graebert, CEO and founder of Graebert. “Graebert took a head start in this technology by investing very early and attracting early partners such as Onshape”. To assess its technology advantage, Graebert revealed during its Annual Meeting a 46 pages whitepaper comparing ARES Kudo with AutoCAD Web, currently the only potential rival of Graebert’s cloud technology. Written by independent industry expert Ralph Grabowski this document can freely be downloaded on https://www.graebert.com/compare-areskudo .

The ARES Trinity of CAD Software: Modern DWG-Editing for Desktop, Mobile, and Cloud

The ARES Trinity of CAD Software is sold as an all-in-one subscription including ARES Commander (for Windows, MacOS and Linux computers), ARES Kudo (the Cloud version) and ARES Touch (for Android and iOS devices). The three solutions are working in synergy, leveraging the agility of Cloud to significantly improve the workflows and collaborations between the users producing drawings and their colleagues or customers working with such drawings.

At its Annual Meeting, Graebert showed for example how ARES users can benefit from file synchronization and commenting tools to facilitate collaboration between desktop, mobile and cloud users. New markups capabilities are now extending these annotation workflows with features that can be used without any experience of CAD. Drawings may also be shared as free-to-use View-only links enabling external contacts to view online the project and share feedback or validation.

Cédric Desbordes, Business Development & Marketing Director from Graebert commented: “ARES Kudo is aiming at making no compromises in features compared to other DWG-editing solutions. Early adopters of Cloud can buy ARES Kudo standalone but we find also that users that are currently working with on-premise solutions tend to prefer our Trinity license. For them, it just makes it easier to combine the advantages of each platform.”

Best-in-class CAD platform to develop web-based vertical applications

The ARES CAD platform is used by a multitude of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to build vertical applications on top of the ARES engine. The OEM versions of ARES are customized and rebranded as per the needs of the ISVs that can leverage from the CAD features of ARES to concentrate their efforts on industry-specific features to be added on top.

Some of the developers currently using the ARES Kudo technology include leading cloud-only solutions such as Onshape. But Graebert aims also at facilitating the transition of longer-established players which solutions need to migrate from the desktop to the cloud.

ARES Kudo includes a C++ Trinity API that potentially allows developers to use the same core source code for both desktop and cloud. This unique capability is at the same time facilitating the migration of existing applications and enabling developers to maintain for the coming years two versions without duplicating the costs.

Additionally, Graebert announced at its Annual Meeting the release of a CLOUDify Pack for ARES Commander OEM. This optional pack enables developers to add the agility of the cloud to their on-premise solutions powered by ARES Commander. It gives them the possibility to create immediate value for their users while they keep working on their SaaS transformation. These features are also very easy to adapt for desktop users and significantly improve the collaboration:

• Cloud storage palette: Side palette to connect with popular Cloud Storage solutions such as
  Google Drive, Box, Dropbox or OneDrive. Create and modify drawings in sync with these storages. Synchronize drawings between all the users and their devices.
• Commenting palette: Side palette to create discussion threads around the project with comments that can be linked to selected entities. Comments are also synchronized across all the users and their devices.
• Share View-only links: Generate a URL from the Cloud Storage palette to share live-updated
  links allowing your contacts to view and comment in their Internet browser.
• Login / Logout: Leverage Graebert’s flexible licensing technology (rebranded with the partner logo).

In parallel, Graebert announced the availability of the BIMflow Pack for ARES Commander OEM. The BIMflow features aim at developing BIM-enabled vertical applications with an optimal workflow between DWG drawings and BIM import/export capabilities. With the combination of its BIM, Mobile and Cloud feature Graebert aims at offering an unrivaled set of features for developers that want to adopt disruptive strategies and differentiate strongly from their competition.

Click below to download the whitepaper to learn how ARES Kudo can solve the SaaS transformation equation for both CAD Users and CAD Developers: