CAD International Acquires Intellectual Property of DRCAuto

After Gary D’Arcy, the Founder of DRCAuto passed away, the company lost key staff and finally ceased trading on 14th Decemper 2009. This left thousands of its customers in the lurch. Earlier Ralph Grabowski reported that a former employee, Leonard Liang, agreed to help strandrd DRCAuto customers. Today I was alerted to this announcement from CAD International which says:

CAD International have purchased the intellectual property of the former company [DRCAuto] and offer immediate assistance to those needing new authorisation codes.

The announcement goes on to spell out the future of DRCAuto’s products.

CAD International currently intend to revive much of the software development as well as introduce new products to the range – This may take some time.

Now this is going to be interesting. Why? Because apparently CAD International sells AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT and one of DRCAuto’s product is LT Toolkit Max, a LT enabler which allows loading of AutoLISP, VLX, ARX and DBX customization and plug-in files, something which Autodesk specifically prohibits in AutoCAD LT. But frankly I am not surprised. Because if you click the two links in the preceding sentence you will be taken to product pages of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT on CAD International’s web site where a note in bold reads:

AutoCAD buyers should consider Bricscad or RealCAD  cost effective alternatives.

Equally interesting is CAD International’s advice to prospective customers who wish to buy AutoCAD from them. The advice goes like this:

Choose AutoCAD when you already know how to use it, are not constrained by budget and want the most common CAD software from one of the biggest names in CAD.

Not surprisingly, CAD International’s Bricscad page further explains why one should not buy AutoCAD. I admire the tolerance shown by Autodesk towards its resellers. I would immediately fire any of my resellers if they came even close to suggesting that their customers should not buy my products. But then Autodesk still lists DRCAuto as one of its resellers in Australia, the same company that developed a product to circumvent the restrictions in AutoCAD LT. Furthermore that Autodesk page lists AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT among the products that DRCAuto sold. So I really wouldn’t put anything past Autodesk.