Category Archives: Autodesk

The cull continues – yet more Autodesk products are bumped off

While you’re enjoying yourselves at Autodesk University (not that there’s anything wrong with that), spare a thought for a few products that didn’t make it through the year. Their unfortunate ends are unlikely to be announced at AU with flashy videos and gung-ho words, but should still not go unnoticed.

More than just a few products, actually. Autodesk killing off its wares is not new, but 2017 is surely the year where the scythe has been wielded with most gusto. I’ve updated the Autodesk Graveyard again to include a few more ex-products. Thanks to JM and others who have pointed out products that have ceased to be.

While you’re getting excited about subscribing to the latest and greatest new thing, bear in mind that each of the 91 items on the list of demised Autodesk products was once similarly a latest and greatest thing. Also bear in mind that if you’re relying on software that’s cloud-based and/or subscription-only, if the vendor loses interest you could be up a creek without a paddle. You may have to deal with the consequences sooner than you might hope. For example, browser-based renderer Lagoa has been ignoreware since being acquired in 2014 (sound familiar?):

It was only a matter of time, and Lagoa had its pending ending announced on 2 November 2017. It will be put out of its misery on 22 December 2017. That’s not very long for customers to make adjustments.

A reminder: what’s listed on the Autodesk Graveyard is probably incomplete and may not be 100% accurate. Additions and corrections can be made by letting me know in the comments on the post Autodesk products are falling like parrots. If you could provide references that show the birth and death dates of the products you know about, that would be ideal, but all feedback is welcome.

BricsCAD V18 – showing Autodesk how to do DWG CAD

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For years now, Autodesk has done very little worthwhile with AutoCAD. There have been a few small but welcome improvements, but it’s really just tinkering at the edges. The product as a whole continues to stagnate and yet blimp out. It’s getting bigger and slower with each new release. The downloads get bigger. The install times get longer. The startup times drag out. The responsiveness suffers. And for what? Pretty much the same old thing, every time. Sometimes you don’t even get a new desktop icon. Don’t get me started on value for money.

It’s as if Autodesk considers DWG-based desktop CAD to be a solved problem. Many CAD users accept this. There’s not much more that can be done to improve it, right?

Wrong.

Bricsys has, yet again, proven Autodesk wrong. It is very possible to significantly improve DWG-based CAD. The improvements to the just-released BricsCAD V18 go far beyond anything Autodesk has done for many years, and that’s improving on an already-excellent and innovative product in V17. I’ll be covering some of the most important changes in future posts, but for now here are a few Bricsys links:

Don’t take my word for it. The easiest way to test the validity of what I have to say is to try it out for yourself. Unlike Autodesk products, Bricsys downloads and installs are small, fast and efficient. How efficient? This efficient (R.K. McSwain, Twitter):

It’s a 258 MB download for an entire DWG-based CAD application which is significantly more fully-featured than AutoCAD. No nasty malware-like download manager. It’s not a stub or a pre-installer that expands itself before even starting the install proper. It’s a ready-to-run installer for the entire top-of-the-range product capable of parametric 3D, sheet metal design and BIM. It installs and starts up quickly. You can have no trace of BricsCAD on your computer now and be editing your DWGs with it (yes, including your AutoCAD 2018 and Civil 3D DWGs) in a few minutes.

Here’s the download link. You can evaluate it for 30 days.

Did I mention that perpetual licenses are available? Or that it’s way cheaper than AutoCAD? Or that when you report a problem it goes to a real developer who actually cares about fixing it in a reasonable timeframe?

Too soon? Autodesk cancels 30% subscription price increase

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Autodesk had announced plans to increase some subscription prices by 30% on 7 November 2017. Resellers have already passed that information on to customers. Here’s the detail of what was going to happen:

Three Important Changes to Subscriptions with Multi-User Access

Autodesk is increasing prices on subscriptions with multi-user access to reflect the value and flexibility that sharing licenses provides our customers. As part of this change, we will stop selling new subscriptions with multi-user access for select products.

Beginning November 7, 2017:

  • Prices for new and renewing subscriptions with multi-user access for most individual products are increasing by ~17-19%.
  • Price for customers to switch from a maintenance plan to an industry collection with multi-user access will increase by ~30%.
  • New subscriptions with multi-user access will no longer be sold for Revit, Inventor Professional, and Navisworks Manage

This was basically an attack on multi-user (network) licensed subscription customers. It’s not obvious what Autodesk has against such customers. On the one hand, Autodesk states that sharing licenses provides customers with value and flexibility. On the other, it states that it’s going to stop selling such useful licenses! You might think that such cooperative customers would be spared the worst of what Autodesk has in mind, but apparently not.

Well, now they will be spared. For now, at least. The 30% increase is being cancelled (confirmation from Autodesk’s Felice S can be found here). I’ve asked for clarification on whether the other measures are also being canned.

Edit: Felice has confirmed that only the 30% element of the announcement has been cancelled and the other measures are going ahead.

It’s unclear why Autodesk would announce such increases at this stage. It’s obvious that Autodesk intends to rack up subscription prices hugely at some point in the future, but it struck me as unwise for Autodesk to show its hand this early. We know the prices are going to shoot up, not only because it’s obvious to anyone capable of joining the dots, but also because Autodesk has already done the rack-up-the-prices thing with multi-million increases for angry but trapped Enterprise Agreement subscription customers.

Unfortunately, most Autodesk customers aren’t aware of what has happened to Enterprise Agreement customers. Even among those who do, there are some trusting souls who would discard their valuable permanent licenses to maybe save a few short-term bucks in the vain hope that Autodesk won’t later impose massive price increases on them, too. I’m not sure what would give anyone reason to believe that, but I have seen people express such a view. What the 30% increase did was to destroy such a charmingly optimistic belief.

That’s why the price rise decision has been reversed. Autodesk might state that this flip-flop shows that it is responsive to customer feedback, but that would be bullshit. Although it was hardly a popular move, there has been relatively little angst about this. The 5%/10%/20% maintenance price increases have attracted far more public criticism. There’s no sign of those increases being reversed, so Autodesk, please don’t come the “we’re listening to our customers” crap. If you listened to your customers, you’d still be selling perpetual licenses.

No, this increase has been reversed because it became obvious (thanks to feedback from resellers, not customers) that it was badly mistimed. It gave the game away too soon.

Too late! We noticed.

It’s probably more accurate to call this a postponement rather than a cancellation. Autodesk will impose ~30% price increases on its subscription users just as soon as it thinks it can get away with it. And 30% will be just the start. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, how much and how often.

We have also learned that multi-user (network) licenses are distinctly unpopular with someone very important at Autodesk. Why? Because they’re useful to customers! What a bizarre anti-customer culture there must be within parts of Autodesk for somebody to even think this way, let alone communicate it externally.

To sum up, here are the lessons from this episode:

  • If you sign up for Autodesk subscription, you’re going to get screwed. Hard.
  • The writing is on the wall for network licenses. If your business finds them invaluable, you’re also going to get screwed.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Autodesk resellers also appear dissatisfied with Autodesk

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I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and have reported the results individually. This is the final post on this set of polls.

The usual caveats about online polls apply. Please note that for most of the poll respondents, I have no way of knowing if they really are/were resellers. Whoever they are, it would appear that the sentiment is global; over ten countries are represented in the voting logs.

Although this poll appears to indicate that Autodesk is even less popular with its resellers than it is with its customers, the difference is not statistically significant. Also bear in mind that the number of respondents is smaller here than in the related polls. That should be expected, but accuracy is suspect with numbers this small.

With that in mind, here’s how the averages look. The mean rating is 2.55, the median is 1 and the mode is 0. Very dissatisfied respondents outnumber very satisfied ones by nearly eleven to one.

If this result has any validity, it’s an indictment on Autodesk’s relationship with its most important business partners.

Why would resellers be unhappy? Well, Autodesk is gradually eating up their market share by selling direct in bigger and bigger numbers. Resellers have had to act as the meat in the sandwich as Autodesk’s policies get more and more aggressively anti-customer. Trying to sell expensive rental software to smart people with calculators can’t be easy, especially if your heart’s not in it. If you’re a reseller that has worked hard over decades to build up a great relationship with your customers and Autodesk has damaged that relationship (in some cases beyond repair), you’re probably not pleased about that, either. And if you’re a reseller that has lost half its income over the last few years and has had to lay people off, you’re unlikely to rate Autodesk highly for satisfaction.

Is that what’s happening?

Feel free to comment here if you wish to discuss any aspect of this. Resellers in particular are welcome to expand on the reasons for their dissatisfaction, or to offer a counterpoint. Are you a happy Autodesk reseller? Or a customer that has had a candid discussion with your reseller on the state of play? Let’s hear from you. You don’t have to identify yourself accurately unless you want to and I will of course respect your privacy.

I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and will be reporting the results individually. The usual caveats about online polls apply.

This poll indicates that Autodesk customer satisfaction levels are perhaps not quite as elevated as they could be. The mean rating is 2.75, the median is 2 and the mode is 0. Yes, zero. Very dissatisfied customers outnumber very satisfied ones by nearly ten to one. That’s pretty emphatic.

If Autodesk had left its policies alone and tried to run a huge PR campaign to deliberately make itself as unpopular with its customers as possible, I doubt that it could have achieved anything like this poor a result. Congratulations, I guess.

Although this is an appalling result for Autodesk, it should come as no surprise to anyone. This reflects the sentiment I see pretty much everywhere, in a wide variety of online forums and when talking to all sorts of people in person.

Lesson for the day: there’s no point in spending a billion dollars a year on marketing if you’re going to do things that make you about as popular as a fart in an elevator.

I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and will be reporting the results individually.

Let’s start on a positive note. The poll indicates that in general, you’re reasonably happy with your Autodesk resellers. The mean rating is 6.04, the median is 7 and the mode is 8. Given the unpopular message they’ve had to pass on lately, I think this is a pretty positive result.

Feel free to comment here if you wish to discuss any aspect of this. Are you happy with your reseller?

Repost: Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse

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This is a repost of Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse from 18 April 2010.

I’m posting this to show that I’m not just having a go at Autodesk’s policies because they’re from Autodesk. I’m having a go at those policies because they are reprehensible. Whoever it is that’s being anti-customer, spinning bullshit, or otherwise misbehaving, they can expect to receive a brutally honest critique here.

It’s interesting that in this old post I pointed out that this policy was bad business. (Not quite the expression I used, but the sentiment was there). My agreement with Buzz Kross on this subject goes back seven years, even though I only just discovered that was the case!

  • 2010: Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse
  • 2017: Autodesk subscription – it is worse!

The old post is below the line. Some of the old links are broken, but some work and provide a fascinating insight into how customers – anybody’s customers – view the idea of being charged to fix defects. Enjoy.

I’m still looking for your questions about Autodesk Subscription and upgrade policies and pricing. No matter what you think about that, you have to admit that Autodesk’s current policies are less anti-customer than those inflicted on SolidWorks users.

Disallowing bug fixes for non-subscription customers is reprehensible, no matter what kind of spin is put on it. Not only that, it’s clueless. So you’re annoyed at Autodesk for whatever reason and are looking for alternative software from a company that doesn’t mistreat its customers? You know not to even bother looking at SolidWorks, don’t you?

Edit: more relevant links and customer comments from Devon Sowell and Matt Lombard’s blogs.

Battle of the Bullshit part 5 – Bentley back in the bad books

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Having earlier earned my praise for raising its game in its PR battle with Autodesk, Bentley has unfortunately reverted to BS mode with its latest effort.

In its message “Upgrade your Autodesk Licenses – Top 5 Reasons Why You Have a Choice“, Bentley’s marketers have chosen to step beyond the facts. Bad idea.

Most of that page is just straightforward promotion of Bentley’s self-perceived strong points. No problem with that. But the first full paragraph? Hmm.

Here’s the first example:

Preserve the value of your Autodesk licenses that otherwise would be lost as a result of Autodesk’s decision to no longer offer or support perpetual licenses.

It’s true that Autodesk has decided to no longer offer perpetual licenses. It’s false to state that Autodesk will no longer support them. Perpetual licenses are fully supported with maintenance. Without maintenance, support suffers, but it’s still there. Of course, customers may be rightly fearful about the nasties Autodesk may introduce in future to “persuade” perpetual license owners into subscription subservience, but we’re not there yet and it’s misleading to imply that we are.

What else?

Your perpetual license is a valuable asset. But, if it cannot be upgraded and maintained, it loses all of its value.

It’s true that your perpetual license is a valuable asset. It’s misleading to imply that Autodesk perpetual licenses can’t be maintained. Maintenance is still available, although Autodesk is making it more expensive.

It’s misleading to imply that perpetual licenses can’t be upgraded. It’s true that Autodesk stopped selling upgrades to non-maintenance customers a while ago (having earlier priced them out of the market and then disingenuously citing lack of demand as the excuse for dropping them). But perpetual licenses under maintenance agreements can be upgraded (and are; it’s the biggest part of the deal). They’re obviously also being maintained, so Bentley’s not being fully frank there either.

Finally, a non-upgradable off-maintenance perpetual license does not lose all of its value. It’s still a valuable tool that is capable of doing useful work and generating income for years to come. That’s kind of the point of perpetual licenses; you can stop paying anybody anything and still use the product. In Europe you can even still sell the product.

Elsewhere, Bentley promotes its licensing flexibility. It’s true that Bentley’s continued support for perpetual licenses and availability of rental (term licenses in Bentleyspeak) means it’s 100% more flexible than Autodesk. That doesn’t make it all hunky dory in Bentley license land, though. I don’t see any mention of Bentley’s practice of rounding up your network license use to your detriment, allowing you to silently overshoot your license allowance, then sending you a huge punitive invoice at the end of the billing period.

To be fair, I wouldn’t expect to see that mentioned in marketing materials. But if you have a look at what Bentley customers have had to say about it, particularly from those people who have been over-billed because Bentley has counted license use unfairly, you’ll see that it doesn’t go down at all well with customers. So bear that in mind if you’re thinking of taking up Bentley on this or any other offer.

The rest of the marketing blurb seems fair enough, even if some of the clichéd stock photos are a bit groan-inducing. However, its effectiveness is severely curtailed by its failure to provide details of exactly what is being offered and under what conditions. As I noted with a previous Bentley attempt, curious customers are expected to fill in an online form to obtain information, and that’s a barrier.

It seems I need to repeat something I wrote in an earlier post:

Raise your game, people; we’re not all stupid out here. If you can’t support your argument with the truth, then your argument isn’t a good one and you need to rethink it.

I’m used to Autodesk doing dumb things because it has forgotten to learn from its own history, including pretty recent history in some cases. This episode seems to indicate that Bentley has the same problem.

Bentley, here’s some free advice. You don’t need to exaggerate in order to make Autodesk’s treatment of customers look bad. Autodesk is doing a magnificent job of that without any help. The facts are enough. Also, if you have a great offer, just tell us what it is. OK?

First 2018.1-broke-my-AutoCAD reports coming in

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Thanks to R.K. McSwain for pointing out that at least one user has reported unexpected shutdowns from AutoCAD (Architecture, probably) following installation of the 2018.1 Update. The problem went away following uninstallation of the update.

Caveat updator.

Anybody else have any issues or are you all waiting for the early adopters to find out for you?

Edit: it turns out the crash occurs when opening 2013 DXF files.

Edit 2: a hotfix has been posted here.

AutoCAD 2018.1 released, but only for some

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Autodesk has released the AutoCAD (and LT) 2018.1 Update, not to be confused with the earlier ill-fated 2018.0.1 Update. It’s only available for currently-paying subscription and maintenance customers. The “non critical” bug fixes in this Update (by Autodesk’s definition) are being withheld from Autodesk’s other customers.

Those of you who have allowed your maintenance to expire due to Autodesk’s development inaction and unjustified price increases can consider yourselves duly punished for failing to fall into line.

If you have the execrable Autodesk desktop app installed (not recommended) and it works as expected, this update will present itself to you. Otherwise, get it from your Autodesk Account page. Go to Management > AutoCAD > 2018 Downloads > Updates & Add-ons and then pick the appropriate AutoCAD 2018.1 Update download.

It has yet to be seen whether this update will break things, so if you’re feeling nervous you might want to hold off for a while and let others find out for you. (Edit: it broke one person’s AutoCAD, see comment from R.K. below).

Weighing in at well over 400 MB, the AutoCAD 2018.1 Update download is about twice the size of a complete BricsCAD download, even before expansion. So it must contain a pretty impressive amount of stuff, right? Or is it all bloat? Well, it includes 2018.0.1 and 2018.0.2 and adds this:

  • Xref Layers Override – Improvements to Xref Layers make it easier to identify overrides and restore them to their default values.
  • Views and Viewports – A new Named Views panel is added to the View tab to make it easy to create and restore named views from the ribbon, and to create scaled views and viewports for your layouts. The new layout viewports are automatically assigned a standard scale that can easily be changed from a new scale grip on the viewport. Viewport grips have been enhanced.
  • High Resolution Monitor Support – Supports additional dialog boxes. Palettes and icons are correctly adjusted to the Windows setting for the display scale.
  • 3D Graphics Performance – Work on performance continues to optimize the speed of 3D display for the Wireframe, Realistic, and Shaded visual styles.

The user interface has been touched up to support the above changes. The Preview Guide has been prepared to the usual excellent standard.

That’s all useful stuff, and most welcome. Work has gone into providing some genuinely useful adjustments. But there’s not a lot of it. Autodesk is still just tinkering at the edges.

Overall, AutoCAD 2018.1 is a pretty minor mid-term update, falling a long way short of, say, Release 13c4. That update was shipped on CD to all customers. Free. No maintenance or subscription required.

Bricsys does much more significant and worthwhile mid-term updates than this, and doesn’t charge for them. Perpetual license owners, even those not on maintenance, get them for nothing. Along with the bug fixes. Which are properly documented.

Autodesk used to do all that too, but its customer service has since regressed to the point that the standards of the Release 13 days are something to yearn for. Long-term Autodesk customers will know just how damning that state of affairs is. Autodesk lags a long way behind not only the competition, but also its former self.

Autodesk CEO and all-rental architect Andrew Anagnost has asked Autodesk customers to give him a year to prove that his business model will provide them with better value. It’s not clear when that year was supposed to start, but the all-subscription start date of 1 August 2016 seems reasonable. However you reckon it, a big slab of that year is gone and there’s very little to show for it.

Time to get your finger out, Andrew.

I didn’t expect to see any comment about the policy of denying bug fixes to some customers from any Autodesk high-ups, but I was mistaken.

Here’s a quote on just this subject from Autodesk Senior Vice President1, Buzz Kross:

It’s just bad business. Why would you not want to take care of your customers? I would never do that. Come on, we all make mistakes. All software has bugs and as a developer, I have an obligation to provide fixes to all my paying customers, whether they are on subscription or not. Customers on subscription have the advantage of getting access to new stuff. That’s fine. But denying them access to bug fixes is just not right.

Buzz Kross, Senior Vice President, Autodesk1
9 April 2010


Photo: Autodesk

It’s not often I so completely agree with an Autodesk executive1, but I can find no fault in his logic. Thank you, Buzz.

1. Although Buzz is still listed as a SVP in some Autodesk online materials, he’s no longer with the company.

Autodesk confirms its own unconscionable conduct

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It took several attempts over a period of months and was like pulling teeth, but Autodesk has now confirmed that it is deliberately withholding bug fixes from some of its customers.

Autodesk has taken customers’ money and in return has provided defective software (OK, that happens). It has fixed some of those defects (that happens too, sometimes). But it’s limiting distribution of those fixes to those prepared to pay Autodesk further (that has never happened before).

Just let that sink in. Autodesk broke stuff you paid for, could easily fix it, but won’t do so unless you pay more. If you thought ransomware only came from Russia, think again.

Here’s how the scam works.

Let’s say customer Fred paid thousands of dollars for his perpetual license of AutoBLOB and paid thousands more for upgrades and maintenance over several decades. Due to Autodesk no longer making significant improvements to AutoBLOB, he finally gave up hope and decided to drop off maintenance. Understandable, particularly as Autodesk has announced maintenance prices are getting jacked up.

Never mind. Thanks to his perpetual license, Fred can keep right on using AutoBLOB! Aren’t perpetual licenses just the best thing?

Let’s say Fred made the decision after discovering AutoBLOB 2017 was slower than, and really not significantly better than, AutoBLOB 2016, 2015 or even 2010. Fred’s maintenance period carried him through to beyond the release of AutoBLOB 2018, which he intended using for a few years until he transitioned to an alternative product. (Or until Autodesk Becomes Great Again, but Fred doesn’t consider that likely).

Meantime, Fred discovers that there’s a new bug in AutoBLOB 2018 that makes it useless for his needs. It’s not a crash, drawing corruption or security issue, but it is something that makes it difficult of impossible for him to produce the required output. Because he installed AutoBLOB 2018 before his maintenance expired, Autodesk won’t allow him to use 2017 or any earlier version.

Meanwhile, Autodesk has, miracles of miracles, developed a fix for that nasty bug. All Fred has to do is download and install the hotfix or Service Pack, right? Wrong. Because Autodesk has wrapped up the bug fix with AutoBLOB 2018.1, a mid-term update that includes not only bug fixes but also a few new minor feature improvements. Unlike the competition, Autodesk restricts such updates to continuously paying customers. AutoBLOB 2018.1 is therefore only available to subscription and maintenance customers. Fred’s bug has been “deemed non-critical” by Autodesk and therefore the fix won’t be distributed to him.

Fred is screwed by a combination of Autodesk’s worst aspects: chronic failure to improve the product, price-gouging business practices, incompetence in development and testing, and unreasonably restrictive licensing terms. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s then screwed again by one final, nasty, vindictive, petty piece of bastardry by a company desperate to strong-arm its reluctant customers into subscription slavery.

This is not OK.

This is no way to treat customers. It’s unethical. It’s unconscionable. It’s immoral. It’s disgusting. It’s evil.

In the EU at least, it could well be illegal. I certainly hope so; Autodesk being fined a few hundred million Euros might discourage other companies from following suit.

Although it’s tempting to think of Autodesk as a single edifice, it’s important to remember that it’s made up of many individuals. Many of them are great people who would never dream of stooping this low and who are probably quietly embarrassed to be associated with a company that does so. Those people have my sympathy and should stop reading now.

But if you’re that person at Autodesk who thought up this idea? Or one of those who thought it would be OK to do this? Or just sat silently during the meetings where this was discussed and didn’t pipe up, “This is just WRONG”? I have a message for you.

You’re an asshole.

Yet more Autodesk software falls off the perch

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Just when I thought I was having a nice vacation from tending the Autodesk Graveyard (see also Autodesk products are falling like parrots), another bunch of former best-thing-ever products have bitten the dust.

This time, it’s Autodesk’s Gameware middleware products that have been read the Last Rites. Scaleform, Beast, HumanIK and Navigation can no longer be purchased or maintained. If you used these products, support will cease as soon as your existing maintenance agreement expires. More details on cgchannel.com.

That leaves Stingray as the only surviving middleware product (for now). That’s probably only still alive because Autodesk wants the halo effect associated with currently-fashionable-again Virtual Reality. But how long that remains enough for survival is anybody’s guess.

My brief experience with Stingray at an Autodesk event left me with the impression that it’s a fair way short of being a finished product. I have been much more impressed with Autodesk’s competition in this area. Autodesk’s currently in Product Grim Reaper mode, which is understandable given Autodesk’s ridiculously large product portfolio. However, that does mean that potential Stingray users should be very wary of investing time and resources in a bleeding-edge product that might not be around for long.

Anybody care to have a guess at which Autodesk product(s) will be killed off next?

Image of war graves by Arne Hückelheim.
No disrespect intended to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Lest we forget.

Automated .NET 4.7 update kills AutoCAD pre 2017

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Thanks to Robert Green for pointing this out:

Microsoft is installing .NET 4.7 as part of their auto updates and it is causing many legacy Autodesk applications to crash on any ribbon interaction. Touch the ribbon, away goes your software.

If you can keep from installing the 4.7 framework do so. If the damage is already done then uninstall .NET 4.7 and install .NET 4.6.2 using this download link. Note that the uninstall of the offending version must be done first!

AutoCAD 2013 to 2016 and Inventor are affected, and possibly other products. BricsCAD users are unaffected.

It is also reported that you can work around the problem by hacking the registry to identify an earlier .NET version as being installed (the usual caveats apply). That’s described in this Autodesk Knowledgebase article that works around a related but slightly different issue.

Don’t you just love the way continuous automated updates enhance and enrich the user experience?

Autodesk now has only one CEO

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The speculation is over. Autodesk no longer has Schrödinger’s CEO. Elon Musk has missed out, the winner is…

Andrew “Baked Beans” Anagnost!

 
Here’s the press release and here’s a letter from Andrew.

The other obvious internal candidate, Amar Hanspal, has decided to leave the company. Resigned on the spot, so I’m told. As the financial rewards for winning the CEO race are akin to winning the lottery, coming second must have been a major disappointment to product guy Amar, who I first met when he was helping to drive the hugely successful Release 14 program. Best wishes to Amar for the future and congratulations to Andrew.

In this welcome video, Andrew talks a lot about products; he seems to be trying to shake off the “marketing guy” image.

Unsurprisingly, he makes it clear that he’s still very keen on the troubled cloud and subscription strategies he has been instrumental in pushing within Autodesk. Expect no respite there, then.

Andrew wants to hear from you, though:

And to our partners and our customers, I’m looking forward to listening to all of you as well, and understanding what you love and what you would like to improve about Autodesk.

 
I know Andrew reads this blog, so go ahead and let him know what you love and what you would like to improve.

Further Autodesk subscription inflexibility

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Autodesk’s claim that its all-rental business model adds flexibility for customers has always been bullshit.

That’s a self-evident truth. Nobody believes that removing customers’ purchasing options amounts to anything but inflexibility. Particularly when the purchasing option removed is that preferred by the vast majority of customers.

But wait! There’s more! I recently discovered that it’s even more inflexible than I originally thought!

If you sign up for single-user (standalone) subscription licenses you’re stuck with them for the duration of your agreement. You can’t upgrade them to multi-user (network) licenses. Doesn’t matter how much cash you wave in Autodesk’s face, or how much you point out that single-user subscription licensing is a crock, it will be a case of “computer says no”.

Astonishing.

Bentley marketers love Autodesk

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Bentley Systems marketers are currently taking advantage of Autodesk customers’ distaste for the Big A’s rent-or-GTFO business model.

For any Autodesk competitor, this is a fairly smart move. Autodesk has offered a free kick to its competitors and is betting on them all kicking the ball wide of the net. How accurate is Bentley’s shooting?

In this case, AutoCAD customers are being encouraged to take up MicroStation. Via the Cadalyst Direct opt-in advertising list, I received an email entitled AutoCAD Users, you need options. We listened:


Talk about feeling trapped (which has many Autodesk customers angry), options and flexibility (which Autodesk has removed) and listening (which Autodesk really sucks at) are clearly taking advantage of Autodesk’s self-inflicted subscription predicament.

“Work the way you want to” is only partly true. If you want to work with a pool of network licenses and not get unpleasant surprises in the way of excess-use invoices every so often, the Bentley Select licensing system may not be for you. Bentley has fixed some of the worst aspects of that system but it’s still controversial and unpopular.

It’s also stretching things to describe DWG as a natively supported format with no data conversions necessary. It’s true that MicroStation has supported open and save of DWG for some years, but as a secondary format. It’s not like BricsCAD, where DWG is the primary format and files can generally be seamlessly shared with AutoCAD users. I know from personal experience that DWG files originating in MicroStation cause a bunch of problems for AutoCAD users. I’ve had to write code to work around some of the issues.

Back to the marketing. The email, complete with imagery of a man cramped up in a cardboard box, pointed me to this page with a similarly confined woman:

With the cardboard box theme, it’s a good thing that Bentley isn’t marketing to cats. They would probably make ideal Autodesk customers.

So what’s the substance of the offer here?

If you own AutoCAD perpetual licenses, you can receive credit for the current value of your AutoCAD license toward the purchase of a MicroStation perpetual license.

 
That’s as specific as it gets: “credit for the current value of your AutoCAD license” could mean anything. Autodesk doesn’t sell software any more, so what’s the value of a license that has no current list price? You could have bought your AutoCAD 30 years ago for $2000 and spend $15000 keeping it up to date. How much credit do you get based on that value? 100%? 1%?

It’s an unknown discount off an unknown amount. What are the terms and conditions? Which AutoCAD releases and variants qualify? Do you get to keep your AutoCAD license? (Of course you do, Bentley can’t take it away from you, but they could have said so).

To fill in the gaps you’re expected to fill in a form and presumably get a quote. I bet most people will stop right there and close the browser window. I don’t know about you, but my interest in offers falls off dramatically when I can’t see what’s being offered.

I think Bentley has kicked the ball the wrong side of the post here.

Autodesk subscription offer begins today

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It’s 15 June, which means all of those millions of Autodesk customers with perpetual licenses on maintenance can now give those licenses back to Autodesk and rent them back for about the same amount.

Tempted?

Despite Autodesk’s best efforts to sell this deal as a silk purse, it’s a real pig’s ear.

Artificially raising maintenance prices doesn’t make the subscription changeover deal any more attractive. It only serves to annoy those customers too sensible to throw away their valuable perpetual licences in return for a temporary price freeze and the vaguest of promises not to gouge you in future. History tells you exactly how much that promise is worth.

This can only be described as an astonishingly arrogant ambit claim by Autodesk. It should be ignored to death. Like any sign-up-now-or-lose-out used car deal, walking out of the showroom is your best negotiating tactic.

Remind Autodesk who’s the boss in this relationship. We, the customers, are in charge here. We have the money Autodesk needs. Deprive them of it until they learn not to take us for granted.

Today I was asked to complete an Autodesk Reseller Satisfaction survey, which I was happy to do. My reseller does a good job. There was also a question about satisfaction with Autodesk.

I’ve shamelessly stolen Autodesk’s question and used it in a poll here. Please only respond if you are or were an Autodesk customer.

Customers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with Autodesk?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (39%, 69 Votes)
  • 1 (6%, 11 Votes)
  • 2 (12%, 22 Votes)
  • 3 (11%, 19 Votes)
  • 4 (5%, 9 Votes)
  • 5 (4%, 8 Votes)
  • 6 (6%, 11 Votes)
  • 7 (7%, 13 Votes)
  • 8 (3%, 6 Votes)
  • 9 (2%, 3 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (4%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 178

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I’ve added a similar poll about Autodesk resellers. Please only respond if you are or were a customer of Autodesk resellers.

Customers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with your Autodesk reseller?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (10%, 12 Votes)
  • 1 (2%, 3 Votes)
  • 2 (6%, 7 Votes)
  • 3 (5%, 6 Votes)
  • 4 (2%, 2 Votes)
  • 5 (17%, 21 Votes)
  • 6 (5%, 6 Votes)
  • 7 (13%, 17 Votes)
  • 8 (21%, 26 Votes)
  • 9 (8%, 10 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (13%, 16 Votes)

Total Voters: 126

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Here’s one just for Autodesk resellers. Please only respond if you are or were an Autodesk reseller.

Resellers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with Autodesk?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (40%, 22 Votes)
  • 1 (11%, 6 Votes)
  • 2 (9%, 5 Votes)
  • 3 (15%, 8 Votes)
  • 4 (5%, 3 Votes)
  • 5 (4%, 2 Votes)
  • 6 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 7 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 8 (9%, 5 Votes)
  • 9 (4%, 2 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (4%, 2 Votes)

Total Voters: 55

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Feel free to comment here if you wish to discuss the ratings you provided.

Maybe I should complete the set and do polls for Autodesk and its resellers to rate their customers?

ADSK celebrates two full years of losses

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Autodesk Reports Strong First Quarter Results, says the press release.

Autodesk co-CEO Amar Hanspal:

Broad-based strength across all subscription types and geographies led to another record quarter for total subscription additions and a fantastic start of the new fiscal year. Customers continue to embrace the subscription model, and we’re expanding our market opportunity with continued momentum of our cloud-based offerings, such as BIM 360 and Fusion 360.

 
Autodesk co-CEO Andrew Anagnost:

We’re executing well and making significant progress on our business model transition as evidenced by our first quarter results. We’re starting the year from a position of strength and are excited to kick off the next phase of our transition when we offer our maintenance customers a simple, cost effective path to product subscription starting next month.

Thanks to this fantastic progress into the exciting new customer-embraced rental-only business model, Autodesk has now recorded eight successive strong quarters of losses totalling $969 million. Another strong quarter like this one will see those losses exceed a billion dollars, and then it will really be time to crack open the champagne.

Here’s how those results look. Green shows profit; red shows loss. The black lines are trend lines. The thick one is linear, the thin one is a 4-quarter moving average.

Here’s an Adobe graph for comparison; it covers a wider date range. The linear trend line is not directly comparable because the Adobe graph includes a recovery phase which Autodesk has yet to enter.

Both graphs represent GAAP results that do not reflect deferred revenue (money that is received but not counted immediately). Autodesk is still making a loss in non-GAAP terms, but a smaller one than shown in the graph. Full details of Autodesk’s financials are available here. Make your own financial decisions based on your own interpretations and/or using the advice of parties better qualified than myself.