Autocad has 39% market share in CAD, Solidworks has 14% market share, and Fusion 360 has 9%.

None of this is a major national advantage for any side. It's bizarre to think that the US or France would treat this as some kind of mark of national influence, since if anything happens to these top three vendors, there are lots of other vendors waiting in the wings. It's not like a national oil reserve, where it's important that you have a reserve of CAD software available for your engineers.

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Teever 5 hours ago | parent [-]

But what kind of projects are people using these different pieces of software for?

Are people designing aircraft carriers in Fusion?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that AutoCAD is extremely important for architecture and the death grip that AutoDesk has over that industry needs to be broken for the benefit of all of us, but from my understanding Dessault Systems makes software that is used for totally different purposes and is of vital strategic importance for a nation that wants an independent MIC which France obviously does.

So it seems foolish to me for them to have their own CAD software that can and is used to design weapons but be dependent on an American operating system produced by a particularly unscrupulous company who is obsessed with tighter and tigher control and has definite ties to the US intelligence apparatus.

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vablings an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The idea that autocad has a "death grip" on the industry is laughable to me.

Fusion360 -> PTC Onshape

AutoCAD -> BricsCAD

Inventor -> Easily outclassed by NX/SolidEdge, Solidworks/CATIA and Creo

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ThePowerOfFuet 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Are people designing aircraft carriers in Fusion?

I don't know, but I have watched people designing high-speed trains in CATIA.

	▲	elteto 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Big players use CATIA and Siemens NX almost exclusively. I don’t know many using Autocad, maybe architectural firms.

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carefree-bob 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I doubt that the US military itself is using commercial CAD software, most likely they are using something in house. Again, CAD software is not Extreme Ultra Lithography, where it is a marvel of engineering and can only be produced by one firm. The netherlands can rightly be proud of ASML as a national achievement. But CAD software? Now that's just goofy.

Check out: https://www.army.mil/article/249241/armys_powerful_open_sour...

But I would assume defense contractors -- the private firms like Lockheed -- are probably using commercial software. The US military is pretty bureaucratic and is filled with bespoke stuff, whereas the contractors are basically businesses and would use whatever is common in commercial business world.