AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

My reseller has been hounding me for a couple months now to renew my subscription.

Jan 13 is my drop dead deadline.... sounds like...

Funny thing is I have absolutely no idea what I will receive in turn for my investment. For 2013, I went ahead and rolled the dice...then.......no Service Pack until late into the 4th quarter. Do I want to go through that again? Felt like the New York Jet season...although they never really had a 4th quarter.....ever..

They're holding future price increases over my head...hmmmm......Really startin' to feel like I'm playing poker in a smoky Old West saloon...... against a gunsligner......Who's bluffing?.....****, I don't even play poker...

SAC brought me out of my Funk with time running out in the 4th qtr...Is there hope?....Did I just make a funny?

hmmmm......

[#2]

If it was funny I'd be laughing...

Unfortunately, it's no laughing matter... in about 5 months I'll be in the same position as you - wondering whether my hard earned dollars will be happy in Autodesk's pocket?

To me it is a 2-way decision: either:

a) make the decision to abandon civil3D in the long run and migrate to another platform over the next year or so (until 2013 becomes obsolete); or

b) decide to stick with C3D. In which case you haven't got much choice - it's either subscribe or perish.

I'm sure plenty will disagree with me, but that's my view.

- Mick

[#3]

When does 2013 become obsolete?  Before I even get to use it?  Half of our office is still on 2008. (Thankfully I'm mostly in 2011.)  Not sure why you say the choice is subscribe or abandon, I don't think we're planning on doing either.

[#4]

We made the decision not to renew most of our licenses in 2010 with the 2011 version. We have 4 licenses that are still on subscritption, but this year we will probably drop all but 1. We are just now starting to get 2012 files from agencies and (rarely) from other consultants. I occasionally use 2013 version, but I haven't found anything to be so ground-breakingly improved that it justifies the subscription expediture.

With 2013 came the 3-year cyclical file format change, but I'd be surprised if that becomes a broad issue for us for another 3 or 4 years. The break even point between subscription or not is around 6 years. We will keep one subscription active for compatibility reasons, and upgrade everything else when

a) business picks up enough to justify the expenditure or

b) we start running into compatibility issues with our partners

As a side note - I do some contract work for the US Navy and they require CAD files to be delivered in ACAD 2006 format.

Just my $0.02 - since you asked.

Kirk

[#5]

stick with what you already know and make the best of it.   Don't play the grass is greener game.   That grass is not real.

[#6]

@ troma: Fair enough - I knew someone would say that   In my case I just have one licence, so compatibility (and ease of integration) with what other are sending me is important. In a multi licence office, it would make sense to just keep one on subscription.

The reasons I got C3D are for a) compatibility and b) the fact that just about anything is achievable with C3D even if it takes me half a day and a bunch of support calls (another subscription plus).

[#7]

Dan, fake grass is always greener!  

[#8]

Mick, you're probably right.  Certainly being on your own is different.  For us it probably would make sense to have one machine on subscription but I don't think we do.