clarification of RedSPark and why it does not affect Buzzsaw

[Anonymous]

As you may know, RedSpark has ceased its operations effective October 1,
2001. Some of our competitors are making negative claims about our
commitment to the manufacturing business in the wake of the closure. These
claims are not only false, but also highly misleading. In addition, people
have inquired as to how the RedSpark closure affects Buzzsaw. Buzzsaw.com
was acquired by Autodesk. We are part of the company like any other group.
We continue to deliver ProjectPoint, Construction Manager, Plans & Specs,
and Repro Desk as we were doing when we were Buzzsaw.com.

Recently, one of our manufacturing executives clarified the way Autodesk
views the RedSpark closure and how it affects Autodesk's Manufacturing
Division moving forward. Most importantly, he wants to assure you that
Autodesk's investment in manufacturing remains very high and is a critical
focus of the company.

As an investor in RedSpark, Autodesk supported their efforts to build a
business, but unfortunately the macroeconomic conditions proved too
difficult for them to overcome. The hosted solutions for supplier sourcing
that RedSpark developed represented one deep and narrow part of the overall
manufacturing process. In contrast, Autodesk's Streamline service which was
being developed during the same time-frame more broadly addresses the entire
manufacturing process.

The demise of RedSpark has absolutely no affect on Autodesk's commitment to
the manufacturing business or the degree to which it can serve customers. In
fact, Autodesk's solutions serve the market better than any alternative.
Closing RedSpark means that Autodesk is associated with only one
collaboration service targeted at the manufacturing space and any redundancy
that existed between Streamline and RedSpark's RapidTeam has been removed,
providing even more clarity for our sales teams and the market.

That said, RedSpark developed some interesting technology and had some
talent Autodesk believes will be beneficial to its manufacturing business.
For example, the parts catalog capability built by RedSpark and integrated
with Autodesk Inventor will be developed and maintained by Autodesk. In
addition, Autodesk has talked to some former RedSpark employees about coming
to work for Autodesk. Finally, Autodesk intends to incorporate key
RapidTeam-like features into Autodesk Streamline.

Autodesk continues to concentrate on moving users to 3D with Autodesk
Inventor and helping its customers share design data throughout their entire
design-chain using Autodesk Streamline. In other words, it is business as
usual.

1. Autodesk's commitment and investment in the manufacturing segment is
stronger than ever and is not affected by RedSpark's closure.

2. Autodesk's manufacturing strategy remains unchanged, focusing on creation
with Autodesk Inventor and process automation with Autodesk Streamline.

3. Autodesk remains laser-focused on converting 2D mechanical customers to
3D with Autodesk Inventor.

4. Autodesk will maintain 2D revenues and support existing customer with our
AutoCAD based product, Mechanical Desktop and AutoCAD Mechanical.

5. Autodesk Streamline continues to focus on the broad solution of
manufacturing collaboration and applications for downstream data use.

6. Autodesk Streamline's functionality will continue to expand and will
include some features previously available in RedSpark's RapidTeam.