Benevolent dictatorship rather than democracy

[roambotics_scott]

I've noticed a few threads for ideas that seem like absolute no-brainers with comments like «I’d like to see more votes».

This is the wrong approach for building great software.

It’s great that you’re taking our feedback, and the votes should be a useful guide (although given the dwindling sample size here, I’m not sure I’d look at the votes as having any sort of statistical significance or even real meaning, whatsoever).

Fusion 360 is precariously perched between being incredibly amazing and irrelevant. I’m a huge advocate of the software, and not a week goes by when I don’t recommend it to someone.. but that recommendation always comes with the caveats that it’s incredibly unstable, and that I wouldn’t recommend paying for it.

I don’t like having to say that.

It makes me feel bad - and I don’t want to feel like an ****. I like everyone I’ve met on the team, and it’s clear that a lot of work is going into it, but, at the moment, it feels like a car with a 1,000 HP engine, but a transmission and steering system that was cobbled together from parts for a Geo Metro.

I want to tell people «it’s the most amazing thing ever and an absolute steal at $40/month» (although personally I’d go with $20/seat/month.. but never mind that now).

So I say - screw the democratic design (at least until it’s mature although probably even then).

Get a manager in there who has a clear vision of the product, the willingness to piss people off and cannibalize other Autodesk products.

Someone from outside who has a proven track record, and someone who uses the product and knows what they want it to become (even if that doesn’t perfectly mesh with what I want or envision, it’ll still be better than what’s there now).

Personally / given my druthers, I think the best thing to do would be to launch it as a spin-off company starting with enough people and runway money to operate for ~9-12 months.

Given the freedom (and a bit of hunger), this is a product that could supplant Alias, Fusion, and Solid Works. It could literally revolutionize product design for start-ups.

Stop being squishy about the votes for this or that, make some hard decisions, and let it become what it wants to be.

[Oceanconcepts]

I agree with much of what Scott says. I'm also a huge Fusion booster and see it as having incredible potential. The Idea Station is so unwieldy that I'm not sure it should be considered more than a general indicator of user concerns. I've always felt it would need some sort of curating to be useful. 

I haven't had quite as much problem with stability as other users have had, but that needs to be a #1 concern. I have some sense of how difficult this is to achieve and how impossible it is to test in house for all the eventualities. Fusion has come a long way in a short time in terms of function, stability sometimes requires time and experience and a more stable base to develop. 

I do, however, find the connection with Autodesk overall to be a positive- provoded there is enough independence to allow Fusion to rech its potential. Autodesk has a solid name for serious software, that, and the other product tie-ins, are positives in many situations. 

Ron

[roambotics_scott]

Autodesk is great and I agree the branding is useful.. but I also think that (a) there is probably a lot of internal pressure against doing things that would cannibalize other products and (b) having an infinite cushion to fall on necessarily slows things down and keeps F360 from reaching its full potential.

Figuring out stability across platforms and use styles is absolutely a huge pain, but I’m convinced that if the thing working and being a sellable product were make-or-break, most of the issues would magically resolve themselves.

It’s not impossible to achieve that within the context of a big company, but it’s much, much harder, and if they did split off, there’s no reason they couldn’t maintain a strong relationship and setup a cooperative pact.

Who knows though - maybe the August update will really turn things around?

[Anonymous]

Great idea.  I think Fusion needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up first.  Is it going to cannabalize Inventor?  Is it for, ahem, "Makers" - who, by the way, in our research are really consumers who tinker.  The number of "makers" that actually generate geometry is really, really, really low.  

I've talked to a lot of ADSK folks about Fusion.  They're all super folks doing a wonderful job, BUT they can't (maybe won't) tell me where Fusion is going.  Here's the thing, Fusion needs a "Commander's Intent" (...well, maybe a "Carl's Intent"...).  Why?  I suspect if someone answers the "Why" people will start to execute and some really great things will happen.

[roambotics_scott]

I couldn't agree more there.

I've had nothing but positive experiences with the people on the team but it seems more than a little rudderless. 

My self-interest would be for it to become a one-stop-shop Inventor / Alias (/Eagle / etc) killer where someone can go from tinkering alone in their garage to building a complex mechatronic product with a team and a nice interface to a scalable manufacturing cloud.

In that capacity, I can really imagine it doing for hardware start-ups what things like AWS did for web startups. 

Even if it ends up being something different though, there should be more clarity and vision - somebody steering and beating the drum to get everyone rowing in sync.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I completely agree. I see big things that get suggested that don't get a lot of attention in here but are vital to a proper CAD program.
Maybe they don't get votes because people assume it should be addressed without question. Maybe it's because most of the people who have time to post here aren't experienced CAD users but the weekend warriors who shouldn't be leading the development of such software.
There needs to be a practical long term game plan that keeps everything on a stable and focused evolution with room for small changes to course based off of demand and popularity.