Autodesk got big selling design and engineering software, but to stay on top of trends, it’s now scooping up application makers.
Socialcam was a hot startup with a simple app that lets people quickly shoot and edit videos on smartphones and share the clips with friends. That might have made it a natural target for a company like Google or Facebook or Apple trying to keep up in social networking (see “What’s the Next Instagram?”). But Socialcam was instead recently bought for $60 million by Autodesk, a company better known for expensive software used by architects, product designers, and Hollywood animators.