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According to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, creating free smartphone apps is much more difficult than building expensive professional and enterprise software.

"People are more demanding for a low-cost consumer thing than they are for [expensive] profressional products," Bass told me in a sit-down at the company's slick gallery space in downtown San Francisco. "The cheapest things have to be the easiest to use," he explained. They don't get a user manual or training classes to show people how to use them.

That's a big deal to Autodesk, which made its name with high-end design and engineering software like AutoCad and Revit, but has made an aggressive move into smartphone and tablet apps in the last few years.

And it's especially releveant because on Tuesday morning the company introduced Autodesk ReCap, the "industrial strength" version of the free consumer product called 123D Catch, introduced in 2012. The products are designed to create "intelligent 3D data" from captured photos and laser scans.

To me, though, the most interesting part of the story is what the heck a professional software company like Autodesk is doing mucking around with free mobile apps for consumers.

Bass said the company first got into the area almost by accident. "The first thing we did was Sketchbook - a piece of professional software that was relatively unsuccessful Nobody knew about it. Then two guys went and turned it into an iPhone app," Bass said. "If I had been asked," he added," I would have said it's the stupidest thing I'd ever heard of. Would would want to fingerpaint on an iPhone?"

That product now has 15 million users. Overall, Autodesk's mobile products have gained some 100 million users in three years, compared to 15 million users of its professional products gathered over 30 years. The company is now building apps "as fast as we can," Bass said.

Sure, the apps are popular, but why would an professional software company would dive into apps? It certainly isn't for the money, at least not yet. While Autodesk's consumer revenue will double this year, Bass said, "We don't make enough [on consumer apps] to pay the rental on this floor."

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Autodesk: Hey, Free Apps Are Harder To Make Than Enterprise Software