Future of CAD: What about the Internet?

I just finished reading Jeff Ray’s (SolidWorks CEO) article on the future of CAD and I cannot help noticing that something that should already have been in the past of CAD is not even prominently featured in its immediate future: the Internet!

Here is a question: how different would CAD systems be today if the Internet never happened?

My own answer: not very different.

How can that be? Everything in our life is different now that the Internet and the Web are mainstream but CAD is substantially the same as it would have been anyway.

What do you think?

Cristiano Sacchi