While I think Autodesk Inventor is a superior product to Solidworks. We have both CAD packages in-house but I prefer Inventor many times over. We have been using Autodesk AutoCAD then Inventor for over 25 years now. However, I want to say that the forced switch to the named-user license model is absolutely useless to us, and will make using the software more difficult in some instances. We have 7 seats on a multi-user network license. Currently, we only have 3 users, so not being able to get a license is not an issue. We don't need to track usage. There is no issue with maintaining a server for the network license, we use it for our Vault and other software using network licensing.
An exammple of how it will be more difficult to use: if I have Inventor running at home (lots of that these days with COVID), with many things open, and I realize something is checked out on my machine in the office, I can log onto the machine in the office, pull a license from the pool of available licenses to run Inventor, check in what I need, close the office session, and resume work at home. With the named-user model, I will have to close my session at home (and all the open files) to be able to run the software on the office machine. If large companies want the features that come with named-user licensing, provide it and let them be happy. But don't take away something that works for the smaller users.
I have a feeling that Autodesk is setting us up for something else down the road. They did this when we went from maintenance to subscription and now this. They treated us poorly at that point, costing us tens of thousands of dollars. We are not a company that sells something, we are a research group at a university. Our funding is tax dollars and donations. At least Solidworks gives us a research break in pricing.
Network licensing works. I don't understand why Autodesk has to mess with it other that it will help their bottom line, certainly not ours. That's my feedback.
gordow
