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(Source enr.com - Date 3/23/03)

By Judy Schriener

Autodesk Inc.'s reacquisition of Buzzsaw announced in July has been completed. Autodesk so far is allowing Buzzsaw to operate pretty much as before, so integration challenges are not a huge issue, other than transitioning customers to Autodesk's billing and other back-end systems.

But the bigger news is that former Buzzsaw CEO Carl Bass has landed solidly on his feet as Autodesk's executive vice president of emerging business and chief strategy officer. The CSO title is a new position within Autodesk, and should afford Bass ample opportunity to exercise his imagination, utilize his hard-won experience and leverage his contacts in guiding Autodesk moving forward. Autodesk's newly created emerging business unit currently consists of Buzzsaw, Autodesk Location Services and Autodesk Ventures.

Buzzsaw is the project collaboration and print services company that was spun off in November 1999 and, like most dot-coms in the AEC space -- whether surviving, on life-support or dead -- never achieved profitability. It is headed by Autodesk and Buzzsaw veteran Chris Bradshaw. Autodesk Location Services is the wireless-focused group, headed by GIS professional Joe Astroth. Autodesk Ventures, the arm that invests in various companies that have potential to contribute to Autodesk's portfolio, is headed by architect Jon Pittman.

Although Buzzsaw has yet to achieve profitability, it is considered to be one of the more successful online collaboration companies, if for no other reason that it has survived, which few of the nearly 200 others in that space at its peak have. In addition, Buzzsaw claims to host 30,000 project extranets with 135,000 users.

Autodesk's marching orders for Buzzsaw are to run the business as it has been run (entrepreneurially) and to make it profitable, says Bradshaw. His focus is on making sure that the uptime remains 99.x% and that customers' data remains secure. "If there's anything that could torpedo our business faster than anything, it would be something in those two categories," he says.

There are few integration issues as Buzzsaw is folded back into the Autodesk family, Bradshaw says, because Buzzsaw retains its own information technology department, development team, sales and marketing groups and customer service reps. It will maintain its own profit and loss statements within Autodesk.

"Customers have responded positively," claims Bradshaw. "We saw that even when we announced the possibility of the acquisition...because [customers] see it as something that Autodesk is backing. 'They're not going to abandon me,'" is how they feel.

Trying to operate as an entrepreneurial entity within a large, slower moving company can present its challenges. But, along with the financial security it brings, Autodesk's international reach will enable Buzzsaw to seriously expand overseas, Bradshaw says. Buzzsaw dabbled in the Far East and Europe but had pulled back by the time of the reacquisition.

Currently Buzzsaw has about 115 employees, down from about 240 several months ago and 170 prior to the reacquisition.

The normally loquacious Bass was tied up in executive meetings (strategizing, presumably) when construction.com tried to reach him for comment and insight into his new position.

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