I was going to ignore this subject, but I’ve changed my mind because it allows me to post something positive about Autodesk. After all, I do try to post positive things; it’s hardly my fault that Autodesk has a habit of making it difficult.
In upFront eZine #756, Autodesk’s Andrew Anagnost (or was it Clay Helm?) had the following to say, and must say I agree totally with the first sentence:
The best evidence is how we have behaved historically. When we included Mechanical Desktop with Inventor, the media complained that we were killing Mechanical Desktop; you were probably one of them. But we didn’t; we came out with six, seven more releases of it, completely free.
So, MDT users, you’re the poster child for how Autodesk looks after its customers. You’re also evidence for how wrong those nasty media naysayers can be. So here’s your opportunity to offer your gratitude to Autodesk for looking after you so well and giving you all that completely free software. Or perhaps you’re the user of another Autodesk product that fell out of fashion or was deemed a technological dead end (like desktop software, apparently). Let’s hear your good news stories about how well Autodesk treated you and your investment.
If you don’t want to add a comment, there’s a poll over on the right. I look forward to seeing the “Brilliantly” option show a near-100% rating!
Uh-huh. And AutoCAD is freely provided with every copy of Fusion. I get free sneakers with every set of new laces.
Truth was that they had two parametric products that would compete with each other. One was mature, easily customized, and familiar to millions. The other was different, slow, incomplete, closed, but showed promise that never arrived. Half of the two quality features from Inventor showed up in ACAD 2012 in the VIEWBASE tools. The other nice part of Inventor is the on-screen display of sorta real-time rendered components and (up to R5) the easy control of the visual materials. I had an amazing aluminum texture that looked exactly like well used seasoned castings. Some of my textures showed up in the Inventor installation, but nobody at Autodesk ever asked for permission.
Inventor was the reason I stopped writing for the CAD magazines. The publishers wanted Inventor articles. I couldn’t get through a single paragraph without going negative about it’s weaknesses and shortcomings.
At least Inventor was included free with MDT. You didn’t even have to install that steamer. It’s sad to watch Autodesk destroy itself from within. -Bill
And by not providing MDT object enablers for later ACADs, Autodesk made sure that all MDT legacy data was worthless. A nice touch. The frosting on the un-lubricated fist.
I read where the Solidworks guys might be looking to start a new CAD project. Wonder if they’d like some input on how to make happy and productive users?
No surprise I am going to agree 100% with Wm.J.Townsend’s comments.
Autodesk goofed big time and, “to a man”, are not “man” enough to admit their mistake.
The losses incurred by many as a result of Autodesk’s handling of MDT is the only reason many of us would avoid accepting any more control over our destinies than we currently need to commit too.
One piece of good news is that the Autodesk’s handling of MDT (and other similar situations) was Autodesk’s education of its customers to NEVER TRUST the word of Autodesk management and staff.
Autodesk is, from my point of view, became the worst supplier of business tools, material, and equipment I have ever had the misfortune of having to deal with in my entire forty seven years of working life. It was not always so: Autodesk’s fall from grace and respect is entirely the result of the lack of (perceived) integrity to be found in management and (as a consequence) their dealers.
Another piece of good news is, Autodesk’s products still have the ability to restore Autodesk (the companies) reputation if it was competently led back to being a true tool supplier to its customer base and ceased exerting authority over the manner in which we apply those business tools and run our businesses.
Why is this post not yet flooded with praise-heavy comments from happy Autodesk orphans? Where are all the grateful former Generic CADD customers? Why are the former FMDesktop users not describing the Frankly Marvellous Death of their product?
Is nobody in a Thanksgiving mood? Ingrates.
I never realized the mechanical crowd got the same treatment the Civil crowd did.
I have a feeling Inventor is much better than what we got, Civil 3D (instead of Land Desktop).
C3D has potential, unrealized so far, but Autodesk misunderstood the balance between speed, stability, dynamicness and ease of sharing. Dynamicness won out, the other three lost so badly we can only use portions of C3D. Autodesk needs to figure out that they either buy a working software for a given industry, that someone else wrote, or do nothing. These internal rewrites of things that worked, do not work. I think inventor was not Autodesk born, so it has a chance.
> I think inventor was not Autodesk born
Nope. Half baked in Novi, the other half in promise. Nobody else to blame…