The American company Autodesk, a well-known developer of computer-aided design software, has imposed a ban on the use of its products by Russian enterprises.

Although Autodesk announced the suspension of activities in Russia back in 2022 against the backdrop of events in Ukraine, it had not previously imposed restrictions on the use of its services.

However, as of March 20, 2024, the situation has changed. Autodesk informed its partners in Russia that from now on, Russian companies, including subsidiaries and third parties registered in the country, are deprived of the right to operate software solutions of the American vendor. Autodesk explained this measure by the need to comply with the 12th package of European Union sanctions against Russia, which prohibits, in particular, the provision of industrial design software.

Earlier, in October 2023, Autodesk liquidated its Russian legal entity Autodesk LLC (SI-I-ES). In addition, due to the sanctions regime introduced in 2014, the company has already limited cooperation with a number of Russian enterprises.

Autodesk software products have been widely used by domestic engineers in various industries requiring design. Particularly popular were AutoCAD for 2D and 3D design, Autodesk 3ds Max for 3D modeling, animation and rendering, as well as the Autodesk Revit line for detailed design of structural structures and buildings.

The executive director of ARPP Domestic Software told RBC about how Autodesk products are being replaced. Renat Lashin.

In the field of construction design, the share of Autodesk software solutions reached 80-90% of the market, notes Renat Lashin, executive director of ARPP Domestic Software. However, in the engineering industry the presence of the American vendor was more modest – no more than 50%. The rest of the market was divided between Western companies, such as Bentley Systems, AVEVA, Nemetschek Allplan (30%), and Russian developers (20%), indicates the Deputy General Director for Science of CSoft Development JSC. Michael Bocharov.

Lashin emphasizes that many domestic products are fully compatible with the Autodesk drawing format and have a similar set of commands, interface and capabilities for application development.

According to Bocharov, the use of foreign software currently does not guarantee information security and data safety, since it periodically exchanges data with the developer’s servers via the Internet, creating a risk of hacking. He notes that after the ban on Autodesk, Russian companies may try to purchase unlicensed versions from partners from CIS countries, but this is fraught with sanctions for illegal distribution.

Director of the BIM division of the company “ASCON-Integration” Dmitry Demin claims that Autodesk software is practically not used in the industrial sector. He believes that the transition to Russian solutions is going well both from a technical and organizational point of view; the main difficulties are associated with retraining users in new habits and methods of work. In his opinion, domestic software is functionally equivalent to foreign analogues.

Director of the Nanosoft Product Management Department Sergey Sych does not expect serious consequences from the Autodesk ban, since the company actually left the Russian market two years ago. According to his estimates, at the time of his departure in March 2022, Autodesk’s share was about 20% of the Russian CAD market, and over the past time it has decreased significantly due to the availability of high-quality domestic software products.