Welcome to IntelliCAD World 2018! The ITC group and the CAD community are in Prague, Czech Republic for three days of collaboration and idea exchange.
This year the ITC is celebrating IntelliCAD's 20th year, and it was time to recap a little history. First, IntelliCAD's roots. As with any software product, development began long before IntelliCAD's initial release. Here's a summary of the timeline leading up to the March 16, 1998 launch by Visio Corp.:
- 1994 — Softdesk starts developing an Autodesk® AutoCAD® clone called IntelliCADD, outsourcing development to a third-party in San Diego, CA.
- 06/1996 — As Autodesk looks to acquire Softdesk, Softdesk looks to sell IntelliCADD to its creators, Boomerang Technologies.
- 12/1996 — Autodesk acquires Softdesk and tries to block the sale of IntelliCADD, but the FTC steps in, and Boomerang acquires IntelliCADD.
- 02/1997 — Two months later, Visio Corp. acquires Boomerang for $6.7M and retains ownership of IntelliCADD.
- 03/1997 — Autodesk and Softdesk settle with the FTC.
- 01/1998 — Visio Corp. acquires MarComp, Inc., a private company creating the AUTODIRECT toolkit to read/write .dwg files. This library is the key component for .dwg compatibility in IntelliCAD.
- 02/1998 — Visio Corp. forms a non-profit cooperative, OpenDWG Alliance (aka ODA, Open Design Alliance). Visio provides a perpetual license for AUTODIRECT libraries/source to the ODA.
- 03/1998 — Visio Corp. announces the release of highly anticipated IntelliCAD 98!
So IntelliCAD exchanged hands several times before even being released. How did it get from Visio to the ITC? We learned that too of course! We'll recap that part of the story next.