Sadly this appears to be a bit undewhelming.
I can see the tech support being of value to some, but I have an excellent VAR who provides near instant help (I have had to have them call back only once, -- and I call more than I should)
Expanded tutorials and documentation is nice, but they should be part of the product, not an add-on. The current documentation is useless for anything more than the most basic operations. I have already paid for the product, I shouldn't be paying again for the instructions on how to use it.
Having access to the beta is break even-- you get to see the new features sooner, but the incremetal upgrades and incompatabilities make it very hard to use in a production environment unless you need a specific feature. Also, If everyone in on the beta program, then there is too much feedback for good response- A few skilled beta testers are far more valuable than a large pool of average users (No implications on anyone here; I have been on both sides a beta programs 🙂 ). This is likely to be little more than an official version of NVIDIAs "leaked" drivers process.
I don't really know what to say about the 'red carpet' thing. This is such an insipid marketing ploy. If there is something specific of value, tell us- Don't give us "we'll throw in something shiny when we figure out what it is".
Sorry, that wound up into a bit of a rant. Autodesk needs to be focusing on Inventor and making it a complete package, not adding frills. Support, tutorials, and red carpets are not going to increase market share if the software doesn't work well. If the software works well, there won't be much need for support and tutorials.
Does this remind anyone of the stuff going on at SUN?
Dan Mayers
![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")