Autodesk Inc, the unstoppable PC computer-aided design and manufacturing software house behind AutoCAD, has made a multi- million investment in Motiva Software Corp, in a move that it hopes will expand its reach into the document management and product data management markets. The two plan to produce a new software product, Motiva Design Group, combining Motiva’s product data management software with AutoCAD Release 14, due to be completed this year. Motova becomes the de facto standard for Autodesk customers to manage their CAD drawings and other office data, and will be sold through Autodesk’s worldwide sales channels, eventually replacing Autodesk’s current product in this area, WorkCenter, which has been installed at over 2,000 customer sites worldwide. A data migration tool to help with the upgrade is under development at Autodesk. San Diego, California-based Motiva, until last year known under the name of Right Angle Systems and Technology Inc, has based its products on component technologies from Autodesk and from its other strategic partner, Adobe Systems Inc, along with Microsoft Corp tools such as Visual Basic, Distributed COM and ActiveX.
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