TechCrunch just posted this video, where Andrew Keen interviews Autodesk CEO Carl Bass.

The interview is about 12 minutes long. About 2 minutes in, Bass makes possibly the most interesting comment in the interview:

“I’d say two to three years from now, every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online.”

If that happens, it will be a truly transformative and disruptive event.

But how can it possibly happen?

Autodesk has, over the years, built or bought a large stable of high-end graphics applications, including 3DS Max, Maya, AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and many others. The company continues to invest massive resources in all the tedious details of updating, fixing, and connecting these products. Customer wish lists still include items from years ago. Performance and bugs are still issues. Within this context, how can Autodesk transform the architecture of these major applications, used by on the order of 12 million people, so that they will run efficiently online?

Possibly the answer will reveal itself. Two or three years from now. If they manage to pull it off, it’ll be impressive.