Those of us who believe that Generic CADD defined the ultimate in utility for the user as a CAD system are dismayed by the prospect of having to update our systems to support new hardware or operating systems and the CAD needs that are coming our way as our work changes. There is no "good choice" for us on the market today. This is the reality.

TanCADEM Corporation has been founded to change this reality. The fact is that a CAD system marketed as a CAD system alone has to follow the "me-too AutoCAD" path that virtually all low cost CAD systems have followed over the past several years. This path will not support a viable company from a financial standpoint. This is the lesson we have learned from Numera’s attempt. This does not mean that there is no hope, only that the path of marketing CAD as single product for a company is hopeless.

We, the founders of TanCADEM, have spent many hundreds of hours doing the financial analysis of the CAD marketplace that allows us to state this clearly. The "trick" has been to find a market niche that allows us to extend the operational philosophy and trade-tradition respecting thesis that was the core of Generic CADD and build a company that can profitably exist long into the future. We have found such a "niche".

Industrial manufacturing operations need a system that allows small shops to be compatible with the dataset forms used by major industrial corporations at a reasonable cost. There is more to this statement than meets the eye. Major industrial corporations use high-cost CAD/CAM system that small firms cannot afford to use. AutoCAD is not even a player in this market! This fact gives us a place to work from where we are not forced to carry the limitations of AutoCAD with us as we grow. This allows us to return to the traditions and philosophy of Generic CADD as we build the products we need to justify our existence financially.

This is the "path" TanCADEM has chosen to follow. This does not mean that we will ignore the needs of users to exchange information with AutoCAD users, only that we will not limit ourselves to the choices Autodesk has made for AutoCAD. This is the foundation of the vision we are trying to bring to reality as TanCADEM.