Autodesk 2007 Annual Report Download - page 5

CEO’s Letter
Our continued outstanding performance allowed
us to significantly increase the investment in
our business while continuing to improve our
profitability. Since fiscal year 2003, spending on
research and development has more than doubled,
enabling sizeable investments in our products. Our
successful migration to an annual release cycle
in 2004 was a considerable achievement for our
development teams and for Autodesk. Our ability
to continue to deliver strong releases annually is
a testament to our execution capabilities. At the
same time, we have continued to invest in the small
strategic acquisitions that bring Autodesk important
new functionality and key development talent. In
the first half of fiscal year 2007, we completed
the integration of Alias, successfully leveraging
their industry leading products and customers
in the manufacturing, building, and media and
entertainment markets. Since fiscal year 2003,
revenues have increased more than 120 percent.
In conjunction with our initiatives to improve our
productivity, earnings per diluted share increased
nearly 900 percent to $1.19 over the same period.
Divisional Performance
Net revenues for the Design Solutions Group
(DSG), which in fiscal year 2007 included the
Platform Technology Division, Manufacturing
Solutions Division, Building Solutions Division, and
Infrastructure Solutions Division, reached $1.595
billion, an increase of 19 percent over fiscal year
2006. DSG operating income increased 14 percent
over fiscal 2006 to $737 million. In fiscal year 2007,
we once again delivered outstanding new releases
for all of our products, including the entire family
of AutoCAD products. Our 2007 family of products
provided customers with increased innovation,
functionality, quality, and productivity, from which
they will derive real competitive advantage. We
continued to enhance our D product offerings with
new versions of all of our D products.
Platform Technology Division (PTD) revenues
increased 10 percent over fiscal year 2006 to $806
million. PTD offers our most flexible, general-
purpose design and documentation tools for users
across industries to solve the increasing complexities
of the design process. Despite the expected decline
in AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT upgrade revenue
compared to fiscal 2006, combined revenue for our
flagship products increased 11 percent.
Our Manufacturing Solutions Division (MSD)
continued its impressive growth with another
terrific year. Manufacturing firms face increasing
pressure created by the growing desire for
customized products and escalating levels of
competition resulting from rapid globalization. To
cope with these demands, manufacturing firms
increasingly turn to Autodesk for solutions that
allow them to raise quality and innovation while
reducing costs and time to market. In fiscal year
2007, we continued to extend our lead in our largest
market. MSD revenues increased 30 percent
compared to fiscal year 2006 to $333 million.
Revenues from our discipline specific D mechanical
design product, AutoCAD Mechanical, increased
23 percent over fiscal 2006. During 2007, revenues
from our Autodesk Inventor family of products,
Autodesk Inventor Series and Autodesk Inventor
Professional, increased 15 percent. We added nearly
48,000 commercial seats of Inventor, making it the
world’s best-selling D mechanical design software
for the sixth consecutive year. Autodesk continues
to win market share as Inventor outperforms the
legacy solutions of our competitors in all areas of
mechanical design. And yet, despite our strong
progress in the manufacturing industry, our
opportunity remains significant. Only 23 percent
of our manufacturing customer base has adopted
Inventor.