Buzz Kross on Inventor

Robert “Buzz” Kross is the Senior Vice President of the Manufacturing Solutions Division at Autodesk. He joined Autodesk in 1993 after Woodbourne Inc., a company he co-founded, was acquired by Autodesk. I met Buzz a couple of times at COFES. From my conversations with him I get the impression that he is extremely passionate about one thing – Autodesk Inventor. And he knows a hell of a lot about it and what it can do. After all, Woodbourne used to develop parametric design tools for AutoCAD and over the years Buzz has greatly influenced Autodesk’s MCAD products like AutoCAD Mechanical and MDT, not just Inventor.

That is why I was quite surprised when I read a comment made by Evan Yares on this blog. The comment was in response to a post where I brought to light Steve Wolfe’s ridiculous statement about Autodesk’s products being used for “relatively important” tasks. Evan wrote:

I’ve spoken to Buzz Kross at Autodesk about the challenge of winning major OEM clients. There’s little more that he’d like better than to win a big powertrain design deal. But I don’t think he’s crazy enough to believe he has a chance to win a major deal for airframe or body-in-white design anytime in the near future.

So I decided to get it straight from the horse’s mouth and sent Buzz an email. I wrote:

I am wondering if you are being misquoted here. Do you truly believe that Inventor is lagging behind the competition in the manner that you have been portrayed in the comment?

And here is Buzz’s reply:

I did read your blog, Evan’s comments as well as Stephen’s. I guess I am crazy enough and I am being misquoted here. Inventor is ready for any job in the world. The 2010 version (shipping now) is the best in the industry. 2011, shipping soon, with its integrated direct manipulation capability will extend our lead. Add my Alias products, which is key to virtually every car design in the world, and you have flexibility and power beyond anything others offer.

Actually this is the job of Autodesk PR – to clarify statements and quotes attributed to their executives and employees. But since this happenned on my blog I decided to do my bit to straighten things out.

I do not appreciate people using my blog as a medium to misquote or misrepresent others for whatever reason.