4 ms·

Can anybody name a successful autodesk acquisition? Their record seems quite embarrassing, filled with lots of acquisitions of unrelated tech for inflated price

Can anybody name a successful autodesk acquisition? Their record seems quite embarrassing, filled with lots of acquisitions of unrelated tech for inflated prices that they ultimately shut down. (No offense meant to the companies being acquired, they’re usually great. Autodesk is the one who seems to screw everything up.)

m463 7y ago
It's extremely hard for large companies acquiring smaller ones to do it well. Kind of interesting to look through these and wonder what (if anything) survived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electr...
- skrebbel 7y ago
  I'm still impressed that Java appears to be getting better faster under Oracle than it did in the Sun days. I mean, Oracle! How?
  - inapis 7y ago
    Java and its ecosystem is a cash cow. Any company will be happy to tend to a cash cow
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Something that many keep forgeting with their Oracle hate, is that Oracle has been part of the Java eco-system since the early days. They did the NC Java station alongside Sun, were the first RDMS to support Java stored procedures, ported their installers and GUI tooling to Java, created their own JVM, later bought BEA, and created their own JEE implementation, among other Java frameworks.
  - aiCeivi9 7y ago
    Didn't they get rid of everything that didn't bring profit like JEE and NetBeans? The only part of Java that Oracle cares about is paid(supported)LTS versions, as there is no free LTS version anymore, with new quick release schedule. Well, that was the idea, some companies like Amazon ( https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ ) want to backport fixes.
codetrotter 7y ago
Their acquisition of Alias in 2006 was good, wasn’t it? That’s how Autodesk ended up as the owners of Maya, MotionBuilder, the FBX file format and a few other things.
sbayeta 7y ago
They acquired Cadsoft Eagle, and I think they continue to develop it. I don't know if it was a successful acquisition though

m463 7y ago

It's extremely hard for large companies acquiring smaller ones to do it well. Kind of interesting to look through these and wonder what (if anything) survived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electr...

skrebbel 7y ago
I'm still impressed that Java appears to be getting better faster under Oracle than it did in the Sun days. I mean, Oracle! How?
- inapis 7y ago
  Java and its ecosystem is a cash cow. Any company will be happy to tend to a cash cow
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Something that many keep forgeting with their Oracle hate, is that Oracle has been part of the Java eco-system since the early days. They did the NC Java station alongside Sun, were the first RDMS to support Java stored procedures, ported their installers and GUI tooling to Java, created their own JVM, later bought BEA, and created their own JEE implementation, among other Java frameworks.
- aiCeivi9 7y ago
  Didn't they get rid of everything that didn't bring profit like JEE and NetBeans? The only part of Java that Oracle cares about is paid(supported)LTS versions, as there is no free LTS version anymore, with new quick release schedule. Well, that was the idea, some companies like Amazon ( https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/ ) want to backport fixes.

codetrotter 7y ago

Their acquisition of Alias in 2006 was good, wasn’t it? That’s how Autodesk ended up as the owners of Maya, MotionBuilder, the FBX file format and a few other things.

sbayeta 7y ago

They acquired Cadsoft Eagle, and I think they continue to develop it. I don't know if it was a successful acquisition though