True all-dat. For me, there's two extra gotchas. First, the subscription
I'm talking about is my own, out of my own pocket...and I'm not using my
license much at the moment because I took full-time work, and my employer
now supplies my seat. Second, last year I got thrust headfirst into the
wacky world of Vault Manufacturing, which is currently the software
equivalent of a 12 year old kid. It desperately needs improving, and got
almost nothing tangible last year. All the new stuff was dedicated to the
lower-tier Vault offerings. We mainly got a major regression (which they
just recently corrected) and a major bug that is still busting our chops.
I'm supposed to reward this by cutting them another check? It just really
grates.
Autodesk's whole attitude seems to be focused around the notion that they're
the only ones who have been hit by this recession, and that's only because
their customers are being unreasonable.
Cheers,
Walt
"David Kozina" wrote in message
news:6314408@discussion.autodesk.com...
Walt,
To be brutally honest, I'm feeling somewhat torn on the whole issue.
One the one hand, I've been on subscription (Acad->ADT->ACA) since R14, ~10
yrs now - and up to ACA 2008, I've felt really good about quality of the
software and the improvements made over the years... Dynamic Blocks -
awesome!
But since then, not so much. Right now, our office is still using ACA 2008
in production.
Why not 2010 or 2009? Lots of little reasons (that kind of reminds me of
chinese water torture) that I won't go into detail right now, (along with
(for us) a lack of real 'gotta have' enhancements) that have added up to a
big enough reason for us to just 'stay put' for now.
Generally my VAR has not had anything really do to with me except get in
contact with me (basically about the time my subscription has been OVERDUE a
week or so - unless I call them first) - I send them the $ and that's about
it. I get a few emails for training classes every month or so. Mostly my
VAR seems to just be benign.
But on the OTHER hand, it also appears that Autodesk has subtly attempted to
torpedo AutoCAD (if not ACA) (and everything and everyone else as well) by:
1) overpromoting Revit (over AutoCAD) (which seems to pretty much REQUIRE a
lot of training in order to gain the sort of proficiency and productivity
that we currently enjoy with AutoCAD - and STILL doesn't handle text better
than R14);
2) NOT providing the means for perfect and seamless translation of legacy
DWG files into Revit files - thereby making it all the more difficult for us
to make a clean break over to Revit - even if we WANTED to do so;
3) investing oodles and oodles of R&D (and my subscription money, prolly) in
order to give us "The Ribbon" - leaving me wondering to this day why they
couldn't have at least filled in some of Revit's gaping deficiencies with
all those resources? (I swear, everytime I check out the Revit discussion
groups on Autodesk and AUGI I just get more and more depressed.);
4) acting like Guido - 'soo... whats dis I hear?... da boss here is tellin
me dat ya tinks dat you're not gonna pay up all dem upgrade protection
moneys? Well, well, well - I feels real sorry for ya fella, really I do,
an' believe me when I tells yas wid all my heart dat dis is gonna hoit me
more dan it's gonna hoit youse...'
Nonsense like this frankly makes it MUCH more difficult to see the benefits
of staying on Subscription.
Not feeling a lot of Autodesk love as of late, sorry to say.
Which stinks, since I REALLY REALLY ENJOY design drafting and CAD.
Perhaps if MY VAR commiserated with me (at least a little), paid me a visit,
whatever, I'd feel better... but I suspect I won't hear from them until next
March or April... 😕
Regards,
David Kozina
PS- I hope my comments above do not imply some sort of blanket rejection of
Revit (nor AutoCAD) - I just wish both programs were (MUCH) more compelling.
"Walt Jaquith" wrote in message
news:6314144@discussion.autodesk.com...
"David Kozina" wrote in message
news:6313447@discussion.autodesk.com...
Walt,
My thought is that your VAR is simply really really really really really
really hoping you'll renew this year.
It looks like that's what happened. They have someone helping them organize
the paperwork, and they just used a less then optimal approach.
Given Autodesk's own bull-in-a-china-shop attitude towards the whole
subscription thing, I can imagine the VARs are under a huge amount of
pressure to keep those subscriptions going.
![Autodesk Design & Make Report](https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/1350519iCB55845EBFC43016/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999" "Autodesk Design & Make Report")