Prosumer is new king of CAD: Autodesk

Pradeep Nair, who was head of IBM's software group, took over recently as the MD of computer aided design software major Autodesk India . Nair spoke to TOI about how cloud and mobile are changing Autodesk , and what the company has to offer for India's requirements.
How is Autodesk responding to cloud computing?
Autodesk has been creating cloud offerings for more than a decade now, even before it was called Cloud.We launched the first cloud-based project management tool Buzzsaw nearly 12 years ago. Then in 2009, we launched Autodesk 360, which is our cloud-based framework, providing tools and services that extend design beyond the desktop. It helps professional as well as amateur designers streamline their workflows, effectively collaborate, and quickly access and share their work anytime and from anywhere . It also gives users the ability to scale up or down to meet business needs without the infrastructure or upfront investment required for traditional desktop software.
What kind of opportunity does the proliferation of mobile devices offer?
It has meant that web accessibility has never been better . In 2009, we launched our first consumer apps for the iOS and Android platforms . We also invested in new markets like personal fabrication and digital art, which attract millions of new customers every month who use Autodesk design apps and products to unleash their creativity. Today , in less than four years, there are more than 100 million users of Autodesk consumer products.
You are saying the profile of your customer is changing?
We are seeing the birth of what is popularly known as the `prosumer' or professional consumer market. These are design professionals at heart and by skill and creativity, but also consumers of personal technology as well as enterprise technology. For most of our history, Autodesk catered to professionals only. Today we still serve more than 10 million professionals , but also provide our software tools, cloud services , mobile apps and online communities to consumers and educators.
Can tools like yours help to improve the design of infrastructure projects and how quickly they become operational?
Credible industry surveys and reports have pegged time and cost overruns as the single most inhibiting factor in the success of infrastructure projects today. Autodesk senior vice president Phil Bernstein pioneered building information modeling (BIM), the most advanced and tested design methodology covering the entire project lifecycle , prevalent today in most of the world's developed economies.
BIM involves creating a 3D prototype of any infrastructure project, which gives you never before envisaged insights like clash detection and carbon emissions upon completion of the project as well as in the use stage. This is really revolutionary and credible studies across the world have reported an increase in ROI of more than 7-10 % in all infrastructure projects surveyed as well as a near perfect adherence to cost and timelines.