Trusting Autodesk

[Anonymous]

Hello all Autodesk has done the AEC industry (and some others) a huge service over the past two decades and more or less single-handedly revolutionised our professions. But they remain a corporation driven by capitalistic self-interest. And not just any corporation - they are the Microsoft of the construction industry. For this reason we only do ourselves a favour to ask the tough questions some on this NG and elsewhere are asking. 1. What is the underlying argument for the new annual upgrade policy (other than to make more money I guess)? Does this really mean that a product I purchase today will no longer be supported in two years time? I can only imagine how disruptive this would be for large users. Are governments, which typically take two years to make any decision, going to stand for this? Also, I have to say, some of these "upgrades" are too minor to be taken seriously - what was the major difference between Revit 6.0 and 6.1, for example, to warrant a disruptive transition for a firm with 100 seats? 2. What is it with the lack of specific data that people are asking for? Do shareholders at least know what percentage of the market Revit has so far captured? I think this is an important point for professionals - a strategic choice between using one software platform versus another has to be made (Revit vs. ADT for example) and we are not unreasonable to want to know how the market is responding to these products. Market forces (and software tidal waves emanating from Richmond,VA) have destroyed perfectly decent software before. In today's environment you are out of a job if you mark ADT on your resume and it suddenly disappears from the market. I don't know if this is the right place for these questions but I thought I'd have a go anyway ...

[johnsonwwd]

BTW, your name reminds me of a LISP guru who worked for SONY years ago. Not sure if you're that guy.

[Anonymous]

Well, the way that I look at it is the least amount of programs I need to know how to use the better, more effecient I will be at them. 6 different programs, plus upgrades on all of them seems like a lot of extra learning.

PS: never worked for sony

John Fleming

[johnsonwwd]

As I said, I don't do upgrade on a regular basis. I only do it when it brings the speed and quality to a new level, which seems to me hasn't happened yet.

[Anonymous]

Why do we upgrade? Because Autodesk know that they control the DWG format (I don't know about Revit, though). Every 3 years or so, a DWG version becomes obsolete and if you do any work with consultants at all and share DWG files, you will have to either upgrade your software or have someone downgrade the DWG. Autodesk know that the disruption in downgrading and having the downgraded DWG not be 100% error-free, is a disruption (among many others) well worth your upgrade! ...by the way, I can edit my JPG files with just about any graphics program! If new entities requires new DWG versions that cannot be read by older software versions is Autodesk's excuse, then I don't know why Autodesk created the Proxy graphics placeholder!?

[johnsonwwd]

You said my heart!

[Anonymous]

"AutoCAD® 2006, the 20th release of AutoCAD software, increases efficiency with across-the-board improvements to bring productivity up and lag time down. "
(---quote on Autocad's front Web page---)

“We’ve easily accelerated certain phases of our document production by 30 percent. My estimate is that we could see increases of up to 50 percent in ideal circumstances.”
—John Moebes, AIA, Associate Principal, Good Fulton & Farrell Architects
(---quote on Autodesk ADT's front web page---)

...so I guess in Autodesk's world, the terms "productivity" and "efficiency" means, "...do we have to go through this every time? Just give us your damn money, stupid!"

...by the way, I think the Autodesk marketing team has stumbled upon a TIME-MACHINE! If for every release of ADT/ACAD, I am told and am able to efficiently gain up to 50% of my time back, I think we, unwittingly have been going back in time since around ADT/ACAD 2004!

;-)

[Anonymous]

It's all 50% of the previous release:

AutoCAD R14 - took an hour
AutoCAD 2000 - took a half hour
AutoCAD 2002 - took fifteen minutes
AutoCAD 2004 - took seven and a half minutes
AutoCAD 2005 - took three minutes and forty-five seconds
AutoCAD 2006 - took one minute fifty-three seconds

You get the idea. 🙂

wrote in message news:4936629@discussion.autodesk.com...
...by the way, I think the Autodesk marketing team has stumbled upon a
TIME-MACHINE! If for every release of ADT/ACAD, I am told and am able to
efficiently gain up to 50% of my time back, I think we, unwittingly have
been going back in time since around ADT/ACAD 2004!

;-)

[Anonymous]

Scott Sheppard [Autodesk] wrote:
> It's all 50% of the previous release:
> AutoCAD 2005 - took three minutes and forty-five seconds
> AutoCAD 2006 - took one minute fifty-three seconds

Revit 8 - don't have to do it in the first place, for it does it for
you. 😉

Jeffrey

[Anonymous]

....so, at 50% time gain from each previous release, we will actually come close enough to see the event horizon...but never reach the naked singularity!?

"The event horizon is the gravity field of a black hole where the space-time is so bent that light cannot escape it. The event horizon creates a region in space where nothing can escape, if nothing can go beyond the speed of light. Thus when something enters the event horizon, it will vanish without a trace. Should the object be emitting something, after it is enveloped by the event horizon, not even the emissions that traced its existence will escape the black hole.

This creates something called the cosmic censorship hypothesis, proposed by Roger Penrose, that can be summarized as "God abhors a naked singularity" (Hawking 114). This means that no one outside of the event horizon of a black hole is capable of observing the breakdown of classical physics inside a black hole (Hawking 115). However, the black hole is also unforgiving towards those who would dare enter the event horizon (Hawking 115).


...so the naked singularity is Autodesk!?

[Anonymous]

You just gave me a mental image I could have done without. Thanks a lot.



--

Matt Dillon
Autodesk Architectural Desktop Certified Expert

View my ADT Blog "Breaking Down the Walls" at
http://www.modocrmadt.blogspot.com

wrote in message news:4936844@discussion.autodesk.com...

...so the naked singularity is Autodesk!?