AUTODESK SHIPS OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT

DEVELOPERS POISED TO DELIVER HUNDREDS OF NEW APPLICATIONS FOR AUTOCAD
RELEASE 13

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--February 12, 1996-- Last week, after an extensive five
month beta program, Autodesk Inc., began shipping, at no charge, the
AutoCAD Runtime Extension (ARX) Software Developers Kit (SDK) to over
3,500 registered Autodesk developers worldwide. Within a few months
Autodesk expects developers in its virtual corporation to deliver hundreds
of object-oriented applications designed specifically for AutoCAD Release
13. ARX is Autodesk's object-oriented development environment that lets
developers deliver high performance, object- based design and drafting
applications. These capabilities that have been present in AutoCAD Release
13 since its introduction in November 1994.

The ARX SDK lets Autodesk third-party developers, for the first time,
create fast and easy-to-use object-oriented applications by providing them
with tighter integration with AutoCAD's core technology. In addition to
AutoCAD, other Autodesk applications that are based on ARX are The
Mechanical Desktop, ADE 2.0, and AutoCAD MAP.

DEVELOPERS TOUT ARX CAPABILITIES

Software developers have quickly embraced ARX, recognizing the benefits it
brings to their application development. "ARX lets us make applications
that integrate more seamlessly with AutoCAD and are faster and easier to
use," said Jim Awe, senior software developer for Softdesk, based in
Henniker, New Hampshire, a developer of architecture, engineering and
construction software applications. "Using ARX, developers can truly
extend AutoCAD with application-specific behavior, instead of simply
customizing the basic feature set."

Speed is also an important factor for Dave Lorenzo, vice president of
software development for Ketiv, of Portland, Oregon, makers of
architectural design software. He said, "Initial studies on our most
computational intensive programs have shown a four to five times speed
increase when utilizing the ARX programming environments."

Getting closer to AutoCAD's core technology was a key factor for Chris
Hawkins, software developer for Ansys, in Houston, Pennsylvania, makers of
finite element analysis software. He said, "ARX is great for developers.
It really opens up AutoCAD R13 and allows us unprecedented access to all
sorts of data and functionality that we could not get to before. Now we
can define new objects, as well as how these objects behave, inside
AutoCAD and AutoCAD will manage the objects."

For Steve Segarra, director of software development for ARCHIBUS, Inc., a
facilities management software vendor in Boston, Massachusetts, it was
ARX's object-oriented capabilities that let ARCHIBUS take advantage of
AutoCAD R13's features to make objects, inside the AutoCAD environment. He
said, "The ARX "technology foundation" provides AutoCAD Release 13 with an
advanced CAD engine, which is the basis for creating modern application
software encompassing the entire design workflow process."

Robert Carr, vice president of engineering for Autodesk, said, "Judging by
the acceptance of third party developers and their eagerness to embrace
the ARX technology, I expect hundreds of new object-oriented applications
to be developed over the next year for AutoCAD R13. This will give our
customers a tremendous competitive advantage."

ARX ENABLES INTEROPERABILITY

ARX technology provides the basis for all design software applications to
share intelligent data. As part of Autodesk's overall interoperability
strategy, ARX is the platform for Autodesk's implementation of selected
Industry Foundation Classes as defined by the Industry Alliance of
Interoperability.

Autodesk is the world's leading supplier of PC and UNIX-based design
software and PC multimedia tools. The company's 2D and 3D products and
data management tools are used in many industries for architectural
design, mechanical design, film-making, videography and geographic
information systems. The fourth largest PC software company in the world,
Autodesk has three million customers in 126 countries. Autodesk products
are sold through Autodesk Systems Centers, Dealers and Distributors
worldwide.

For more information on Autodesk, please call 415-507-5000, type GO ADESK
on CompuServe, or visit the World Wide Web site at
http://www.autodesk.com.
 
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