Carol Bartz

Slide Show: Carol Bartz

Bartz is most definitely the only tech CEO who has been a cheerleader, a majorette and a math whiz. She once said she loved and did well at math because no one ever told her girls weren't supposed to be good at it.

Coming from a small town in WisconsinAlma, population 800folks had to do a lot of different things and Bartz took her cue from that. She studied computer science at the University of Wisconsin, moved next to mini-computer pioneer Digital Equipment Corp. and then spent a decade at Sun Microsystems, rising to the rank of vice president of worldwide field sales before moving to Autodesk. She became CEO of the CAD leader in 1992, stepping back from that role last May with Carl Bass as her successor. She remains executive chairman.

To consider Bartz's achievement, it is remarkable to note that of the early PC software pioneersLotus Development, WordPerfect, Software Publishing, Ashton-Tateonly Autodesk remains independent. The others either were bought out or disappeared altogether. Two other pioneers, Novell and Borland International, were decimated by Microsoft's Windows/Office onslaught. But Autodesk, which Bartz calls the second-oldest PC software company after Microsoft, survived and thrived as it rode the Windows wave. It is now a $7 billion company.

Bartz credits the decision to consolidate development on Windows, leaving Unix in the dust, as a major turning point. In the early days, AutoCAD ran on all variants of Unix.

"When I got to the company 14 years ago, we were so diverse that we spent all of our time moving the same product aroundnot innovating. It always seemed so simple to say this word 'port.' I'm going to port to SGI Unix, port there. Port and piracy are my two [hot-button words]. Piracy is stealing, and porting is development. You always have to do a lot to be true to the platform and that takes away from making sure you have innovation in functions and features," Bartz says.

Having said that, Autodesk has moved to support Linux in some of its media and entertainment software and is looking at the platform for its CAD wares. It will move to support the technology if the market develops, Bartz says.