Autodesk loses CFO

Design software maker Autodesk announced Thursday that its chief financial officer is leaving the company for a software start-up.

Steve Cakebread will leave San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk at the end of the month for a similar job at Salesforce.com, a San Francisco company specializing in software for sales-force automation. Cakebread had been with Autodesk for five years.

Autodesk said in a statement that Martha McDonald, vice president of corporate finance, would assume Cakebread's duties until a replacement is hired.

The company also reported financial results down significantly from a year ago. Net income for the first quarter, which ended April 30, was $18 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with $28 million and 25 cents a share in the same period a year ago. Revenue for the quarter totaled $229.3 million, down from $245.7 million a year ago.

CEO Carol Bartz blamed the slowdown on overall economic pressures and sub-par results from the company's Japanese division and its Discrete animation software unit.