As previously discussed in this blog space, the Bush administration was slow and grudging in helping out the critical US auto industry, exacting many concessions and rules before it recently parted with a few billion dollars. Here is an update:The New York Times reported today that "The Treasury Department has agreed to take a stake of $5 billion in GMAC, the auto lending company, and agreed to lend $1 billion to General Motors to help GMAC reorganize itself as a bank holding company." The Treasury Department said "it would buy $5 billion in senior preferred equity with an 8 percent dividend from GMAC. It also said it is lending up to $1 billion to GM to help GMAC reorganize itself as a bank holding company. The agency said it was using funds from the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act's Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy the GMAC equity make the loan to G.M." The Wall Street Journal also reported, "The move represents the second tranche of government aid that redounds to the benefit of...

We talk about using a common information environment called a Building Information Model to help get to higher quality decisions, but are we making progress toward that goal? It seems that new independent organizations spring up every day that are starting out re-inventing new ways of doing business and generating information that are not looking to what information may already exist. In reality a lot of the information for green, sustainable and high performing facilities should be shared. Yet each group sees itself as independent. How do we entice people to work together and share the far greater rewards of working together? This has happened in other industries, possibly not as diverse and fragmented as our own. It has happened in the related world of GIS. However even GIS sees themselves as an island and seeks to expand their base independently. However, if coordination can happen elsewhere then the AECOO industry should be able to do it also. What are everyone’s thoughts on how we can focus our goals in the...

As part of its continuing program of acquisitions to build analysis and simulation capability, Autodesk announced this week that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire ALGOR, Inc. for approximately $34 million.

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, ALGOR's computer aided engineering (CAE) software is used for product design and development in the automotive, aerospace, medical, consumer products, defense, energy and utilities industries.

The acquisition will strengthen the Autodesk solution for digital prototyping with advanced simulation functionality, including multiphysics, mechanical event simulation and fluid flow.

Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendor Cadence Design Systems has been a frequent subject for blog entries in this space for months, especially since its CEO and four other executives suddenly resigned back in October 2008. Simultaneously, the company also delayed reporting its Q3 2008 financial results to launch an investigation of its financial methods and practices for all of 2008.Well, on December 10, 2008, Cadence finally reported the results of said investigation, and the news was not pretty.Cadence said it actually lost $169 million, or 67 cents per share, for Q3 2008, which certainly compares unfavorably with profit of $72.7 million, or 24 cents per share, in Q3 2007. The Q3 2008 revenue of course also declined dramatically, falling 42% to $232 million from $401 million in Q3 2007. The much-reduced Q3 2008 revenue figure still missed analysts' most-recent pre-December 10 estimates for Q3 2008 of $239 million.The company paid a dear price as it finally announced its Q3 2008 results. Trading near $4.00...

I was co-chair of the Program for the Future, held 12/8-9 at The Tech Museum in San Jose, at the MediaX Center at Stanford, and in Second Life. Here's a video of a wonderful conversation between Alan Kay (inventor of Smalltalk; Dynabook; Object-Oriented Programming) and Andy van Dam (teacher of more computer industry leaders than I can count.

It was an honor to work with the team who did all the work! 

In previous blog entries in this space, we’ve talked multiple times about the building evidence of Bush 43’s second recession. For example, the 240,000 jobs lost in the US in October, the tenth consecutive month of job losses, brought the total job losses for 2008 to 1.2 million.

But the news released today is ridiculous and unforgivable! The Labor Department just announced that US employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November alone! This is the worst monthly number in 34 years!

The unemployment rate would be even higher if not for the exodus in November of 422,000 more frustrated people from the work force.

Job losses in November were widespread, hitting factories, construction companies, financial firms, retailers, leisure and hospitality, and others industries. The few places where gains were logged --- you guessed it -- the government and health services.

As if we needed confirmation, the “news” emerged on December 1, 2008 from the National Bureau of Economic Research, (despite repeated...