Autodesk New Policy - spate of India

[julie_tirone]

Another option could be Draftsight by Dassault Systemes there is a Free downloadable 2D CAD version and a Premium version for purchase as well as 3D Solidworks.

http://www.3ds.com

very .dwg compatible

[irneb]

...3D Solidworks.

Depends on your industry. SW I've found is a great tool for stuff like product design / mouldings / sheet metal / etc. Not so great for buildings and construction though.

Another free Cad is a rather new re-implementation (non IntelliCAD version - as BC is built on top of IC): nanoCAD. Not bad, the closest absolutely free CAD I've seen to AC. If you're truly stuck for cash, then this is adequate for most purposes.

[cadtag]

that'sone of the great things about this century -- CAD, as a drafting tool, is becoming a freely available, and free, tool. Just be sure and let your Adesk dealer know that Autodesk _pricing_ has driven you to use alternatives.

After all, we don't just want free/cheap CAD, we want Autodesk to fix their pricing, and treat their users/customers as valuable assets with a customer relationship to be nutured, not just sheep to be sheared for a quick profit and the heck with the long term.

[dgorsman]

that'sone of the great things about this century -- CAD, as a drafting tool, is becoming a freely available, and free, tool. Just be sure and let your Adesk dealer know that Autodesk _pricing_ has driven you to use alternatives.

After all, we don't just want free/cheap CAD, we want Autodesk to fix their pricing, and treat their users/customers as valuable assets with a customer relationship to be nutured, not just sheep to be sheared for a quick profit and the heck with the long term.

But at the same time, it can't just be "make it cheap, make it work, make it NOW!!!". No matter how cheap the product becomes there will always be those demanding it cost less (or getting paid to use it...). There has to be some consideration on the consumer side about just how much it costs to develop and support software, especially technically complex ones like AutoCAD. After all, we don't work for free - I wouldn't expect AutoDesk employees to do the same.

[Wanderer]

But at the same time, it can't just be "make it cheap, make it work, make it NOW!!!". No matter how cheap the product becomes there will always be those demanding it cost less (or getting paid to use it...). There has to be some consideration on the consumer side about just how much it costs to develop and support software, especially technically complex ones like AutoCAD. After all, we don't work for free - I wouldn't expect AutoDesk employees to do the same.

It's a tough balance to keep.

Another question is the flat state of the world these days. Say there is an income-correlation taken on pricing (which is what the OP seems to say in one portion of the post). Then I go to a country and buy software there, because I can get it cheaper than I can here in America... then I'm undercutting the american designers the same way the pirates are.

(Sorry, just thought of that because my husband's computer was bought when he was working in one country, and his seat of autocad was purchased when working in another... and both of them ended up here in America. It's a somewhat moot point, as he doesn't CAD for $ anymore, but, if he's done it, I'd have to assume others have. But, then they might try to restrict people buying in one region and using it in another... which wouldn't be fair to those who travel or emigrate.)

I dunno, it's a complicated topic on a global scale.

[cadtag]

Work for free, definigtely not. And there's no reason to even suspect that the Graebert, Bricsys, nanoCad, ODA, or Intellicad developers are doing that. I don't mind paying for what I use in my business endevours, and i don't mind at all paying for upgrades or improvements that are in fact, upgrades and improvements, I do mind paying for software that the vendor: fails to perform adequate qua/qc on prior to release, provides terrible help systems, is slow to fix known problems, and does everything possible to move customers over to a subscription model that requires paying in advance for an upgrade/fix that may or may not surface and may or may not offer anything of value to my operation. Buying a pig-in-a-poke is _always_ a poor business practice. If the vendor want more of my money, he needs to provide a compelling reason to upgrade - not just artificial version incompatability.

Paying for software is fine -- paying 'gold standard' prices for what are rapidly becoming commodity-level features and repeatedly solved problems is not so fine.

Most especially, I vehemently dislike a vendor that takes subscription money, and rather than working to impriove the product I've licensed, uses that revenue to fund other products. IMHO - everyone who had Land Desktop on subscription is morally entitled to a full refund of their subscription fees. C3D is arguably a better product than LDT _NOW_, but it wasn't in 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2008. Taking subscription dollars for LDT licenses, and shuffling people over to C3D licenses was IMO unethical.

Similarly, I'm deeply offended that my subscription dollars are being used to fund the 'cloud' services offered by Autodesk - even though there's no way I can legally use that service without violating company IT policy with a termination-level offense. (and if you are an employee for a corporation that has any IT or IP policy, the same likely applies)

Side note: I just received an email notification from a dealer that AutoCAD was now included in all suites at no charge. is this the 'kiss of death' for Acad? I hopenot, but I've noticed over the years that products originally charged for, and then bundled with some other Adesk offering, seem to disappear and die. Impression comes to mind as a recent example, and Actrix as a much older one.

[irneb]

...But, then they might try to restrict people buying in one region and using it in another... which wouldn't be fair to those who travel or emigrate...

They already do that. We had some projects in the middle east, and were actually told by ADesk we needed to buy a ME license to use our laptops over there. There is apparently an "International" license as well, though I was told it was orders of magnitude higher priced. to the point where you could purchase 3 to 5 local licenses instead. Read the clauses in the ELUA, you're not actually allowed to carry ACad (or any other ADesk program) across a border.

Side note: I just received an email notification from a dealer that AutoCAD was now included in all suites at no charge. is this the 'kiss of death' for Acad? I hopenot, but I've noticed over the years that products originally charged for, and then bundled with some other Adesk offering, seem to disappear and die. Impression comes to mind as a recent example, and Actrix as a much older one.

With you on that, ACad is part of the Building Design suite. Actually it seems that at least Vanilla is part of all suites, some would be accompanied by a vertical ACad, some include stuff like Revit / Max / etc. But it seems the common denominator in all is Vanilla ACad.

As for subs, yep I'm with you. Subs is only cheaper if you'd have followed the upgrade path with each and every new release. If you skipped one or two releases a full purchase is actually cheaper. And as we all know, the fixes are as scarce as chicken teeth and the "new features" are mostly disappointing. Mostly a new version means something else is broken or removed or superseded.

The cloud stuff is IMO just a silly fad. Perhaps if you can get extremely fast (100MB/sec +, prefer 500+) throughput to the servers it might be feasible to actually use it to work instead of simply as a viewer / markup on a tablet on site. Then again not all countries have decently priced ISP rates. And that's not to mention stuff like company policies as you describe.

[Wanderer]

They already do that. We had some projects in the middle east, and were actually told by ADesk we needed to buy a ME license to use our laptops over there. There is apparently an "International" license as well, though I was told it was orders of magnitude higher priced. to the point where you could purchase 3 to 5 local licenses instead. Read the clauses in the ELUA, you're not actually allowed to carry ACad (or any other ADesk program) across a border.

What absolute horse hockey!

Hmm... I might see if I can find his box and check out the EULA just out of curiosity (I think it's r2002, I'm not sure.).

Thanks!

[dgorsman]

Cloud development isn't just limited to the more publicly available storage options or the direct-from-vendor software as a service model. The exact same technology would be applicable to a mid- to large-size office with a fully private cloud. It can also be applied to multiple remote offices with their own secure cloud services. In both cases it would provide huge benefits to IT/CAD support in terms of distribution, management, and upgrading of software, settings, drawings/models/media, and user hardware requirements. But in order to get there the technology has to be developed first, and right now the only available means is through the existing (public) cloud systems. Once the software and processes are more mature I expect the larger corporations to be developing their own internal and secure cloud-based systems for those benefits, followed by other technology companies to take those lessons to start selling implementations for smaller businesses without the deep pockets for that kind of development.

[jaberwok]

Sure, AutoCAD is a complicated programme but I suspect that Windows is an equally complicated programming exercise.