Last week at CADCAMnet I reported that retail MCAD vendor Alibre Inc., has landed a deal whereby they get to bundle Adobe Acrobat 3D with Alibre Design Expert ($1995). As I explained in a commentary at CADwire.net, this is a win/win on several levels. Adobe keeps a high perceived value on a $995 retail product, Alibre gets to define a nascent market—3D design editing—and customers get a great deal.

I started in the CAD industry not as a journalist, marketer, book author, conference manager, or programmer (although I’ve done all five since), I started as a dealer. Conroy LaPointe was a fast-growing mail order operation based in Portland, Oregon that sold software and hardware; I was an assistant manager at their Bellevue, Washington retail store. I remember the day when two guys came in from a new startup called Generic Software, wanting us to sell their $99 CAD program. I was amazed at how simple it was to type in two-letter codes and place lines, circles and arcs. To me, it was a no-brainer to stock the program.

Generic CADD 1.0 sold well. But it really started to fly off the shelf when Generic CADD did a bundling deal with Logitech, the mouse manufacturer. You have to remember, this was the era of DOS, not Windows. A mouse was not standard equipment, it was an extra purchase. Not every program could take advantage of a mouse—Logitech was selling uphill, trying to establish the market. We sold Generic CADD stand-alone, we sold a Logitech mouse stand-alone, and we sold LogiCADD, the two bundled. The bundle outsold both standalone products combined. Some customers would come in for a CAD program, realize they also needed a mouse, and bought the bundle. Some customers came in for a mouse, and liked the idea of getting a new drawing program as a bonus. We couldn’t keep LogiCADD in stock.

There was a powerful synergy at work in putting these two products together at an aggressive retail price. Customers who bought a mouse and Generic CADD separately paid more than the LogiCADD customers. Eighteen months later I was a Generic Software employee, and I asked CEO Bob Fulton about the bundle. More than any other marketing or sales campaign, the bundling deal drove the success of both Generic Software and Logitech. “It was the most important thing we ever did,” he told me. It helped define and expand a new market in a way that the two products sitting side-by-side separately on the shelf could never do.

I think Adobe and Alibre will find their bundling agreement will do the same thing. When the next version of Adobe Acrobat 3D comes out early next year, it will open the door to 3D design editing. All those people with authority to contribute to a design but who lack a CAD seat will now be able to participate fully in the design process. Adobe Acrobat at $995 and Alibre Design Expert at $1995 could sit on the shelf next to each other and few people would make the connection. But putting them together in a bundle for $1995 will get the ball rolling.