Acquisition: Broderbund Acquires Home Design Software from Autodesk

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, July 13, 1998

Broderbund Software, Inc. Monday announced its acquisition of the Picture This Home! and Designer's Vision product lines from Autodesk, Inc.

Broderbund will acquire rights to the software titles, technology, and personnel associated with the business.

"This acquisition is a perfect strategic fit with our objective of extending leadership in our core markets," said Joe Durrett, CEO of Broderbund Software. "We are pleased to add several formidable titles to our current family of quality home design products."

"We are excited about the talented team we will be adding to our home design group," said Doug Mack, general manager of the Banner Blue Division of Broderbund Software. "Autodesk's breakthrough products complement our current portfolio of titles, and their strong relationships with leading home decor manufacturers are a powerful asset."

"Autodesk has been successful in the consumer design market with the Picture This Home series and other products," said Godfrey Sullivan, vice president of the Personal Solutions Group for Autodesk.

"However, we feel that Broderbund is better suited to carry the Picture This Home line forward because of their strength in reaching the home design consumer, both through retail and direct-to-consumer channels. We also believe that our manufacturing partners like Schumacher and Hunter Douglas will benefit, as Broderbund continues to grow the category and increase the number of people who use their home computer to make purchase decisions."

The Picture This Home line offers a broad set of capabilities for consumers including floor planning, decorating, budgeting, and shopping. Users can create a multiple-level floor plan and then use breakthrough features like color matching technology and the ability to view and change photo-realistic room settings complete with specific pieces of brand-name furniture with actual fabrics, wallcoverings, and more.

Current products include Picture This Home! Kitchen and Picture This Home! Bath, both of which were nominated for the coveted Software Publisher's Association "Excellence in Software" award for Best Productivity Software of 1998. The products include advanced technologies such as 3D rendering, color matching technology, and online access to additional content which can be downloaded and integrated into the software.

The team has gathered well-known, branded content which allows consumers to visualize various combinations before making purchase decisions on furniture, appliances, and more.

According to PC Data, an independent research firm in Reston, Va., the home design software category grew by 36 percent last year. Broderbund holds the number one position in the home design category with approximately 40 percent market share. According to PC Data figures for May, four of the top five home design titles are published by Broderbund, including the award-winning 3D Home Architect Deluxe, 3D Home Interiors, and two recently-released products, 3D Home Design Suite and This Old House Kitchen and Home Architect.

Broderbund will continue to develop and enhance these existing product lines with its long-time development partner, Advanced Relational Technologies, as well as its more recent partner, WGBH, producer of the "This Old House" television program.

Broderbund anticipates that the Picture This Home line, which appeals to a broad consumer base as an integrated "all-in-one" product, will grow its position in the market. It will complement its existing 3D Home Architect title, which is a best-of-breed planning tool filled with deep functionality for do-it-yourselfers to develop home plans, as well as its 3D Home Interiors title, which is a specialized interior design tool for developing room-by-room decorating plans.

Broderbund's development capability will expand significantly with its new in-house team which includes some of the best engineers with expertise in 3D visualization and modeling. The team will unveil several new innovative software and Internet products currently under development over the coming year.

In addition, Autodesk's Designer's Vision team, based in Southern California, will be joining Broderbund. This team serves many of the leading home design manufacturers in the industry by digitizing their product sample books onto CD-ROM, which are then distributed by the manufacturers to professional interior designers and retailers in lieu of, or in addition to, traditional physical sample books. This same digital content is integrated into the Picture This Home product line to offer the manufacturers broad exposure to the consumer market.

Manufacturers benefit by allowing consumers and professionals to use the power of the computer to visualize combinations of various samples as they make their design choices, and also lower costs by reducing the number of physical sample books they need to distribute.

In addition to the purchase of the software lines, approximately 45 current Autodesk employees will join Broderbund to continue development and expansion of the products under the Broderbund name. The transaction will be accounted for as a purchase. Additional terms were not disclosed.