By Jean Thilmany

Today’s engineers are intrigued by CAD in the cloud but they seem to be letting others jump on the technology before they act.

More companies plan to adopt cloud-based CAD software within the next five year. But don’t look for this method of CAD delivery to become the industry’s next flavor of the year, according to Business Advantage Group, a B2B research group and consultancy based in the U.K. The group’s recent report looked at some key CAD trends for 2015 and predicted their future adoption.

The number of responding companies using CAD delivery method jumped only 1% between 2014 and 2015, from 7% of respondents to 8%.

But 19% of respondents plan to adopt the technology within the next five years. More than 635 CAD worldwide users and decision makers across a range of company sizes and industries (including architecture, building information maintenance, and manufacturing sectores) took part in the survey.

Why the interest? The companies looking at cloud-based CAD say they’re intrigued by its mobility and by the ease of updating the software. They’d also like to use it to reduce CAD costs and increase storage capacity.

More vendors, from Autodesk to Onshape, are making software available in the cloud (method of delivery is also called software-as-a-service, or SAAS).

Though the survey doesn’t tell us, smaller companies could be turning to the cloud to cut licensing costs.

Those companies could find the mobility, the reduced costs, and the increased storage they seek, but if CAD-in-the-cloud doesn’t come without drawbacks, more than 19% of companies would be considering adoption down the road.

The ever-growing options for cloud-based CAD market means companies must be particularly savvy at determining the costs, benefits, and return-on-investment they’re likely to see from the cloud. Under the cloud model, companies don’t own the CAD software and aren’t responsible for upgrades or maintenance. Instead, they subscribe to a CAD system located on a vendor’s servers.

When comparing the return-on-investment and the total cost of ownership of cloud to the on-premise model, companies must consider the costs, benefits, flexibility, and the risks of cloud against on-premise technology (the type the company owns outright). Problem is, the comparison isn’t apples-to-apples, which makes it difficult to arrive at a bottom-line savings, one way of the other.

A manufacturer might cut costs through doing away the cost of buying and licensing hardware but the cloud application does necessitate a recurring subscription fee.

And the enterprise will eventually own on-site infrastructure outright; they’ll never own the cloud-based CAD system. They essentially rent access to that system, while paying for bandwidth and security, accessibility and mobility.

But, just to throw another wrench into the works, any licensed CAD system will likely be due for another expensive infrastructure upgrade in about five years.

Any company’s mileage will vary of course. But, as the survey demonstrates, CAD-in-the cloud isn’t set to take over the industry just yet.