Glad to hear the team is thinking about this and working on the best scenario.
I hear you say that it's not just a matter of the model, but involves people and history and a lot of stuff, and I understand that that stuff is all value-added, but it's still true that none of that stuff should be required for working on a design. I don't need to collaborate. I don't need to have a rich history stack. This modern model that you're talking about where it's not just about the work - it's about the people and all of the other rich metadata - that's where all (good) software companies are going with their suites. It's my opinion, though, that if Autodesk requires folks to work in their world, on their platform, in their structure, they're going to upset the users.
It's not about dropping the capabilities that your cloud system offers. Like I've said, it's value-added. It's good. I like it. It's more about lock in. Even if your system offered the exact same file sync functionality as the other cloud storage systems, if by choosing Fusion 360, I choose that I have to use Autodesk's cloud platform in order to even create... save... open... design?! That will not go over well.
To be a bit more responsive and tie my thoughts directly to your notes...
>A rich set of interelated information gets saved and there is is no single file capturing all this info
I don't always want a rich set of interelated information. Often, but not always. There are some strong scenarios where I want to use a good tool, to create a top secret model without any collaboration with anyone else. The fact that F360 is so close to being able to do that (I'm thinking about the .f3d archive feature) means it should not be difficult to light this scenario up entirely.
>So to bring this collaborative design experience we had to manage the data more intelligently and the distributed nature of it does not lend easily to a file sync/drop box model
I wish it were more like "...if a user decides to opt in to this collaborative design experience, then we have to manage the data more intelligently..."
>Looking ahead we are working on supporting ability to branch and merge your designs to explore variations, concurent review and editing etc. so that the overall journey of a project can be captured. All these required us to think beyond a file sync model.
I agree that to enable the stuff you're talking about, the simple file sync model falls short. But the simple file sync model should be there too. I'm not proposing a reversal of the direction Autodesk is taking the platform. I'm not even proposing a diversion. I'm proposing the inclusion of the simple case for the purpose of a) true offline story b) feeling of user being in control of their stuff c) NDA work d) ability to keep design files in another system when the project demands it e) anything else I didn't think of 🙂
>The key issue you guys are raising is performance in saving or capturing this rich data
That's not the key issue I'm trying to raise, though it is an issue. The offline story is only a hard one right now because of Autodesk's explicit exclusion of the ability to create, edit, and save locally. If I want to work my simple scenario (create, design, save, print, done) then I could have excellent performance all the way through.
Hope my thinking helps your thinking. I hope you're reading all of this as amicable and constructive, and I hope you translate my enthrusiasm as passion for a good product and a genuine desire for progress. Happy to keep up the conversation.
