Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I have received the following letter from my supervisor and has asked me for input. He knows nothing about the software or what this email really means except that the reseller is looking for some money, haha. And he really doesn't see a need to upgrade if what I'm creating now is good enough for the company needs .

If it was ultimately my personal decision, I would subscribe. New versions with enhanced features is always good to have.

But on the company's side of things, they do not really need to have the latest, fastest "better" version. I make simple models (less than 100 components assemblies) and produce drawings to fabricators. Any dynamic simulation and stress testing is done simply for my personal interest the design. There is little to no engineering. A lot of reverse engineering if any. I went through the PDF for top reason's to subscribe and some of them would be nice to have but not necessary at all. I am also the only user/CAD tech in the company if that means anything. After writing I think we have pretty much determined what were going to do, but any advice or experience with not subscribing and running a single version of Inventor for an extensive period of time would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sean Farr

letter from reseller below:

Hello Sean,

I see that your subscription contract # XXXXXXXXX for Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimatelapsed in April this year.

Although you may have had good reasons to not renew, you are a valued customer of ours and we want to make sure you

fully understand the future cost implications and the entitlements you would otherwise have. If you are using this license on

a regular basis, it is inevitable that you will require a new version in the future. 

The good news is we still can renew it. It’s more cost effective to stay current than to upgrade later.

The cost of Subscription is $1300.

The cost of Upgrade is $ 5995.

The cost of a new license is $ 9995.

We can renew it now even without late fee of $100 because of the promo.

As you can see to be on subscription is definitely most economical way to stay current. And it’s from cost perspective alone.

But with subscription you have entitlements like:

• Tech support
• Ability to activate and use older versions
• Install software on a home computer to use after hours
• Have access to subscription website to manage your licenses and download product extensions
• Automatic upgrades

I have also attached Autodesk Subscription PDF brochure for you to review.

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.

Thank you,

[#2]

Here is a reason most might not consider -

How secure is your position?  Do you entertain any ideas of moving to another company?  How much will your skills degrade if you are stuck on old release.  Is it worth it to you for these and other reasons to take the money out of your own pocket and get on subscription?

[#3]

Two others things to consider:

1) If you don't have a subscription (then no new release), you probably can't move to a new OS version because it's not supported.

2) If a bug is founded in the software, the latest release will be fixed and older one later (or never...)

[#4]

I just dropped subscription and didnt even bother installing 2013.  Each release has very minor improvements and they are not worth the migration hassle and bugs that come with it.

[#5]

Is it uncommon for a company to use a release of Inventor for an extended period of time? The company I work for just started out with CAD, they have no idea where it will end up in 5 years. Whether they will have 5 more CAD Techs or Engineers, or whether one CAD Tech can handle all there drawing and design needs. We are not designing Aircrafts or cars, simple structural products made of tube and sheet metal mostly.

I am running Inventor Pro 2012 on Windows 7 64 bit. The company does not keep up to date with computers and OS's. I am pretty sure we are still running XP on majority of our machines. I doubt very much that I will need or convince my boss to upgrade to the new version of windows in the next 5 years. Inventor runs flawlessly currently on my PC, why

would I mess with that.

I think the major issue with not upgrading is compatibility with other OS's and releases with Inventor. But $1300 is a large amount of money to pay per year just to have the newer version when it might not be needed.

Hmmm,

I am in favour of subscribing and supporting Autodesk, but I need a good valid reason to explain to my boss on why we should always have a subscription to keep current.

Thanks

[#6]

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SeanFarr wrote:

I am in favour of subscribing ....

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All of your reasoning presented here says stay on what you have - no need to upgrade, no value to subscription.

How much would it be worth to YOU?  If it isn't of any real return for you or your company then it isn't a smart business decision.  If there is projected return that would at least reduce future expenses then it is a smart business decision.

[#7]

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SeanFarr wrote:

I am in favour of subscribing and supporting Autodesk,

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Why?  Every year they rush releases to maket that havent been properly tested.  They dont care about us or our profitability - or our sanity   Maybe if more people stopped paying they might start listening to what their users want. 

You should do what is best for your company, and if there is no foreseeable benefit, then save the money.

[#8]

I have spoke to our reseller and have gone over the fine print details.

For our current company needs, we don't need a new release of inventor

But we have one year from our subscription end date to re-subscribe if that changes. So if we decide to upgrade in the next 6 months (subscription expired in April) we pay the $1300 to get the new version of Inventor instead of $6000. Plus the benefits of subscribing.

If we don't subscribe, we have 4-5 years to pay the $6000 to upgrade to a new release and after that we will need to buy a new licence which is currently $10,000.

Thanks for all your input.

Have a good day!

Sean