Beware Autodesk

[eduley]

<Moderator paraphrase> I am unhappy with what I perceive as unfair treatment concerning subscriptions and product fulfillment. </Moderator paraphrase> I will say that my reseller has done an excellent job of going to bat for me and trying to get this thing resolved as it should be. I would recommend Datec Inc. because of the work. Autodesk on the other hand, may be on the way out as far as I am concerned.

[michael.12445]

My experience sounds similar to yours. Our dealer (CVIS) has been nothing but helpful, including tech support. Unfortunately they are called upon to support a product that has crashes and data corruptions so mysterious that even they cannot solve them. And the decisions as to when product "upgrades" are released, and older versions "retired," are Autodesk's, not theirs.

With the announcement that the version of AutoCAD we're using (2002) will be retired on January 16, we are now looking at alternatives to Autodesk products. It does beg the question you raise as to how long their behavior is sustainable.

Michael Evans

[robert.1.hall72202]

Im not happy at all with subscriptions...........why on earth would I just now be getting a copy of Acad 05 when 06 is becoming available???? What am I paying for????

[Brian Myers]

Im not happy at all with subscriptions...........why on earth would I just now be getting a copy of Acad 05 when 06 is becoming available???? What am I paying for????

Umm.. why ARE you just getting a copy of 05 on subscription when 06 is available? You should have gotten it a long time ago...

[tommy.huckabee]

What other products can be implemented that aren't Auto Desk that can be learned and taught without a lot of time and trouble? Subscriptions are really not the way to go.

Tommy

[michael.12445]

If you mean products that are similar enough to AutoCAD that users don't have to learn an entirely new program, there is a group called the "Intellicad Technology Consortium" that creates something called "Intellicad" which is released to its developer members, who in turn release their own versions of it to the public. They are claiming their latest release is R2005-read and write compatible. The Intellicad Technology Consortium is at www.intellicad.org, and a couple of the bigger vendors are Bricscad - www.bricscad.com, and Cadopia - www.cadopia.com.

Generally the Intellicad-based products are priced at less than $500, and have more capabilities than AutoCAD LT. About all they don't do is handle ARX applications.

Michael Evans
Togawa & Smith, Inc.

[tommy.huckabee]

I will have to be checking into that sometime soon.
Thanks a lot!

Tommy