I noticed in Ralph Grabowski’s latest upFront.eZine that Autodesk has announced that 100 developers have 200 add-ons working with its 2009 series of software. I hope I’m not supposed to be impressed by those numbers. I remember when Autodesk boasted about having over 3500 third-party developers. What happened to the other 3400-odd? This is a serious question; if anybody knows where they all went, and why, I’d love to know.
Of those two hundred 2009-ready applications, how many of them take advantage of 2009’s Big New Feature, the Ribbon? My guess would be close to zero. Why? Because the AutoCAD 2009 CUI architecture is all wrong. Adding custom stuff to the Ribbon is simply a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Even Autodesk’s own vertical teams have shunned it.
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Well, we fall in the category of the other 3400 developers. At SYCODE, we are still struggling to release SolidWorks 2008 ready add-ins, and SolidWorks 2009 is supposed to just around the corner. We are almost done and will get to supporting AutoCAD 2009 thereafter.
Another thing, plug-ins for AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 should be compatible with AutoCAD 2009. Note that I used the word “should”.
This annual subscription model, although very profitable for CAD vendors, only adds to a lot of headache for everyone, including the CAD vendors and specially third party developers like us. One year is just too less time to fix bugs in previous versions and develop new features to justify the subscription fee.
My guess is that the testing of these new features gets the least time which only adds to the bugs in the new version and the problem then compounds year after year.
Right on there. No time to test thoroughly enough either for Autodesk or for the beta testers. Often it’s the latest beta version that is tested but then it’s too late to make any larger changes before RTM.
I guess many of the developers don’t have had the time to fill out the details needed to have them listed on Autodesk’s site not to make sure it works with 2009 even though it probably does.