Article originally published on the Novedge Blog
When buying a CAD product, most of us consider many factors, such as the feature set, price, platform, and the level of integration with the programs our clients and customers already use. While we may not realize it, we often look for something that feels or looks familiar. That’s one of the reasons CAD companies invest so much in marketing, trying to build trust, familiarity, and loyalty in their brand. However, if we can overcome our conservative attitude and bravely consider less mainstream software systems, we would be open to discovering some great products with very attractive pricing. These great opportunities are usually hidden from our eyes, but that doesn’t mean they are not worth our money. One of these hidden pearls is ASCON, a Russian CAD system that offers a competitive and interesting combination of price and features. A look around may reveal relatively few ASCON users, but that doesn’t say anything about the quality of their software. At Novedge, we have been selling ASCON for a couple of years, and I’ve always been curious to know more about this, to me, mysterious Russian company. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview the CEO of the company, Maxim Bogdanov, and I tried to learn more about him and his mostly unknown yet intriguing company.
Maxim, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your new position?
I joined ASCON more than 12 years ago. My start at the company was in 1996 as a CAD Software Sales Manager, then I moved through the Regional Sales Team to Chief of Marketing. In January 2008, I was appointed CEO of ASCON Group, succeeding Mr. Alexander Golikov, who had held this position since the company’s founding, and then became Chairman of the Board.
this company has already became a part of my lifeD
Of course, it was an important step in my life, but this company has already become a part of my life, and most people from our team I have known for many years. It’s a real pleasure for me to work with such a professional, active, and creative group, as well as to manage all the activities of this constantly developing company.
What features of KOMPAS 3D make it different from the competition?
The competition in the CAD solutions space is very high and intense now, but due to the world’s economic situation, industrial companies are paying more attention to using their budgets effectively. ASCON offers them in KOMPAS-3D all the functionality of professional, powerful 3D and 2D modeling, as well as a wide range of add-ons (such as piping, sheet-metal, animation, kinematic and dynamic analyses, 3D model recognition system, extended import/export opportunities, and many others) at just a fraction of the cost of similar brand-name solutions. With the help of our partners worldwide, we provide CAD users with cost-effective mid-range solutions that have already helped thousands of enterprises save millions of dollars.
any person [..] can become working-proficient in just a few days
Not only is our solution a budgeting advantage, but it also offers a user-friendly interface, a powerful assembly design, compatibility with all known CAD systems, stable, instant local technical support across different regions, and ease of learning and use. Anyone with minimal CAD experience can learn KOMPAS and become proficient in just a few days.
Russia is well known worldwide for its strong and deep-rooted mathematical tradition. How does this important tradition affect your product and its features?
A peculiarity of Russian programming is not just coding, but developing new science-intensive products, and in our solutions, we’ve seen that in full for more than 20 years.
a peculiarity of Russian programming is […] developing of new science-intensive products
When ASCON took its earliest steps in 1989, our products were among the first of their kind in the former Soviet Union market, so our own programmers and technicians had to create everything from scratch. In our CAD solution for 3D parametric design and 2D drafting, KOMPAS specialists from our company created all the parts—from the software’s mathematical core and parametric technologies to the ready-to-go system. Now at ASCON, we have more than 300 professional programmers and engineers who improve our solutions from version to version, adding new in-house-developed features — without outsourcing to other countries.
Entering the US market has always been a difficult task for European companies. What is your strategy to establish ASCON among the major CAD systems in the US?
International business in ASCON and advancement in the US market, compared with the company’s history, are young, but work in this direction has been progressing smoothly at a rapid pace. We’ve already received a lot of positive feedback and continue to show promising achievements in this area:
- Our distributors’ network and availability grow with every year.
- We have good customers and relationships in the US, as well as in Europe and Asia.
- The latest release of KOMPAS-3D V10 is the third version available totally in English, so we’ve improved it considerably since version 8 was launched.
- We have a lot of favorable reports from different test labs (such as a review in Cadalyst)
- We’ve been constantly arranging press releases, articles, case studies, and tutorials to the most popular US printing and online sources.
- Participation in the main international fairs yielded many fruitful contacts and new partners.
- We launched a discussion forum, which made feedback faster and communication with our customers easier, helping us better satisfy their needs and wants.
- This year, we’ve also opened our Educational program with the main aim of training and popularizing our MCAD software among future specialists.
All of the above and many other activities lead us to believe there is great potential for ASCON in the US.
The CAD world is now reconsidering the parametric history-based approach and exploring the new or revived direct modeling approach. What is ASCON’s strategy for these new technologies?
ASCON constantly tracks all trends in the world of CAD. In our research center, we also study the capabilities and prospects for direct modeling in the development of our Mechanical Computer-Aided Design solution, KOMPAS-3D.
What is the position of ASCON in the Russian CAD market, and who are your major competitors?
As I have mentioned above, KOMPAS-3D is a mid-range CAD solution, so we mostly target small and medium-sized industrial enterprises and design bureaus. In Russia and CIS country we are one of the leading CAD developers and vendors. Our solutions are very popular, and since the company’s foundation in 1989, ASCON solutions have been used at over 40,000 end-user work seats.
In Russia and CIS country we are one of the leading CAD developers
Results for 2007 showed that we share the lead with Autodesk in Russia – ASCON holds a 20.4% share of the market, and Autodesk 28.8%. All other world-renowned vendors, such as UGS, PTC, Dassault Systèmes, and SolidWorks, stand far behind.
Despite PLM being an important part of your product line, it’s probably the least known here in the US. Can you quickly describe the strength of the ASCON PLM solutions?
Yes, in Russia and CIS countries, we are also one of the leading PLM developers and vendors. ASCON product data management solution LOODSMAN:PLM keeps all the information necessary for designing, producing, and maintaining the output products by an industrial enterprise. During pre-production, the system collects data from design and technology units and facilitates information exchange among engineering departments. Approved data and documentation are routed to other corporate departments for supply chain management, manufacturing, and maintenance of the output products.
I would like to thank Maxim for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks also to Irina Voronkina for her valuable support in putting together this interview. If you have any questions for Maxim or for Novedge, please leave a comment below, and we will be glad to answer. ASCON CAD systems are available through the Novedge website.
Franco Folini