DeskCAD – Yet Another AutoCAD Clone

isicad news pointed me to a Russian company called Cadezy that intends to “overthrow the established views on working in CAD systems“. Their team is supposedly “working on a web-based product which will soon turn working with CADs and CAD apps upside down“. Sounds like a lot of gymnastics is going be involved here.

Basically, it looks like we going to see yet another AutoCAD clone. Two, in fact. One will be a suite of cross platform desktop applications for PC (Windows, Linux and Mac) and Mobile, going by the name of DeskCAD. And the other will be a web-based 2D/3D editor which will work as a plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Both will have full support for the DWG file format and their “functional capabilities will be equal or better than such of AutoCAD 2009“. There is also going to be a Web 2.0 Portal which will offer storage space for drawings.

Not surprisingly there will be a DeskCAD LT which will not have support for “ARX applications”. Cadezy recently joined the Open Design Alliance. So I think I know where all this technology is coming from. However, there is no mention of IntelliCAD on their web site and neither is Cadezy mentioned on the IntelliCAD members page. But there is a small give away. They are looking for investment ($2.4 million actually) and were kind enough to let prospective investors know how they had already spent their current $1.17 million investment (see this budget document). Item 4 reads “Membership dues & fees (ITC, ODA)” and the amounts resemble the membership fees of the ITC. So Cadezy appears to be another ITC member breaking away. If not then neither Cadezy nor the ITC is proud to admit a relationship with each other.

For now I am taking all this information at face value, even though a number of things don’t add up. For example, the budget document suggests that the company existed since 2006 whereas the CEO’s LinkedIn page calls Cadezy an IT startup which he co-founded three months ago. The CTO’s LinkedIn page concurs.

Anyways, a beta of DeskCAD LT is due to be released by the end of September. I look forward to seeing it.