Marketing, Consulting, and Business Development Services for the Technical Software Industry

Hybrid Open Source Software Development...  

A new breed of software research and development organizations has emerged from the efforts at creating open standards, and Open Source software development...

While not following the traditional approach of relying totally on volunteer efforts at Open Source software creation, these software development organizations offer a dedicated research and development effort, combined with the volunteer efforts of the membership in an Open Source model. The best of the traditional approach to software development corporations, when combined with the volunteer development efforts, results in a larger pool of software development talent than a single company can supply. The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium is one such organization operating in the international Computer Aided Design markets...

About the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium...

The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium (www.intellicad.org) is an independent organization of commercial CAD software developers that has been established specifically for the purpose of licensing and coordinating broad development of CAD technologies.

The ITC sponsors international research and development teams whom actively push the IntelliCAD technology forward, while working closely with the membership to meet their customer’s needs. Members gain access to the technology source code, defect tracking, code submittal, developer support, etc.; every thing they need to produce their own products based on the ITC technology. The members receive the ability to work closely with the technology and software development efforts, while reselling the software branded as their own products. Members are encouraged to expand on the technology with their own utility or vertical market applications.

The ITC is governed by its member’s; its board of directors is made up of those elected from, and by, the membership. The board of directors offers the consortium a wide representation from international markets, who guide the strategic direction of the organization and products. The member based Board of Directors brings a perspective from those who are actively selling, supporting and training end-users of the technology, and can provide the consortium with an insight into the problems the technology can solve.

Two levels of membership are offered by the ITC; the API membership is available to support the efforts of those developing vertical applications for the IntelliCAD Application Programming Interfaces, while Commercial Members may resell the CAD technology, either stand-alone, or in combination with vertical applications,  branded as their products, without royalties.

About the technology...

The ITC offers the IntelliCAD® technology, an industry standard CAD engine for architects, engineers, and designers - virtually any professional who creates or uses CAD drawings. IntelliCAD's native file format is .DWG, so when you open an existing DWG file there's no file conversion and no data loss. They offer industry standard compatibility with an AutoCAD command set, as well programming API's such as LISP and SDS (IntelliCAD's C programming API). That means you can get to work immediately using the DWG files, commands and applications you rely on. IntelliCAD is available around the world and is now available in more than twelve languages including French, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English. Find out more about the IntelliCAD technology...

The ITC also offers ArchT® technology licensing, a technology which runs on the IntelliCAD Application Programming Interfaces, and offers designers the ability to make their ideas come to life in commercial, industrial, residential, or virtually any architectural discipline. ArchT is highly customizable and can adapt to a wide variety of design and design/build situations worldwide. It offers styles based designs, allowing editing of object properties globally throughout the design, allowing the designer to quickly modify their ideas and see instant results. A designer may work in 2D, or quickly convert the model to 3D for further editing and visualization. Find out more about the ArchT Technology...

The Conclusion?

The ITC offers the CAD application developer immediate entry into the international CAD market, offering complete technology and developer support to allow creation of their own CAD products. Unlike traditional software companies who continue to charge you a royalty on each copy of the software you sell, the ITC offers an Industry Standard CAD engine which is royalty free. Also unlike traditional software companies, those who run the company are those who are invested in the technology, actively developing it, and are directly connected to the end user.

The unique way this organization operates seems to provide evidence of a new way of driving software application development forward resulting in more open standards, lower cost, and more opportunity for both the technology reseller and application developer. The IntelliCAD Consortium’s track record of providing quality CAD research and development to those who also sell and advance the technology development seems to be a win-win proposition, to the benefit of their membership and CAD users worldwide.