For those of us who have been following Autodesk for decades, it’s a familiar story. Autodesk buys a company or its technology, makes an Autodesk product out of it, and initially promotes it as the best thing since sliced bread. Autodesk subsequently ignores it to death, before finally killing it off and leaving customers in the lurch.
Autodesk FM Desktop suffered this fate, and if you go looking for information about the product on the Autodesk site you’ll find only a few dregs left over from the days when this was a viable product. At least in this case Autodesk has belatedly arranged a path out of the mire for its customers. FM:Systems will be taking over Autodesk’s FM customers, and your Autodesk FM Desktop licenses can be converted to FM:Interact Workplace Management Suite licenses. There is no data transfer mechanism yet (other than a DWF import), but something is supposed to be made available in the next few months.
(Edit: Marty Chobot from FM:Systems informs me that they will help customers who need to transfer data immediately).
For more information, see www.fmsystems.com/fmdesktop, especially the FAQ.Edit:
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Hi Steve,
One point I’d like to add… While the migration routine is in development, FM:Systems will provide assistance for FMD customers that need to migrate immediately. So there is a plan but it wasn’t clear in the FAQ. Prior to the agreement, FM:Systems had already migrated several FMD customers.
Best,
Marty