This evening, I needed to know exactly which operating systems were supported by all AutoCAD releases from 2004 to 2011 inclusive. I have a pretty good idea, but I needed to confirm that my mental picture is completely correct. So I hopped over to the Autodesk Knowledge Base and entered “system requirements” in the [...]
 14 April 2010, 10:35 pm |  7 comments | Tags: Documentation, Fail, Knowledge Base, Rant | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Customer Service, Fail, Other Sites, Rant, Video, Web Stuff I’d like to hear your experiences with the support that is part of the Autodesk Subscription package. My own experiences have been mixed, but I’d like to hear from you rather than push any particular barrow. Have you used it? Good, bad, indifferent, all of the above? Is it timely, efficient, knowledgeable, clearly communicated? [...] 23 February 2010, 10:36 am | 5 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Customer Service, Subscription, Support | Category: Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Subscription In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat gradually disappears until nothing is left but its smile. The AutoCAD packaging has done the same thing over the years until now nothing is left but the 0s and 1s. In Release 13, one box was not enough to keep all the materials, but Autodesk gradually [...] 19 February 2010, 3:06 pm | 4 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Spin, Subscription, Tip | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2011, Autodesk, Customer Service, Nostalgia, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Subscription, Tip As I reported early last year, Autodesk is going to discourage you from paying for upgrades as and when you see fit. It is doing this by charging you 50% of the cost of a full license to upgrade from the previous release. The same 50% cost will apply if you crossgrade [edit: crossgrade [...] 8 February 2010, 10:40 pm | 37 comments | Tags: Autodesk, EULA, Pricing, Subscription | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Thoughts 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 [...] 16 January 2010, 1:54 pm |  One comment | Tags: Autodesk, Customer Service, FM Desktop, Orphans | Category: Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Other Products LT Toolkit from the now-defunct drcauto was an add-on for AutoCAD LT that provided LISP and other capabilities that Autodesk disabled. Autodesk hated this, of course, but the late Gary D’Arcy made sure everything was done legally so it couldn’t be stopped even by Autodesk’s hyperactive legal team. If you are a user of [...] 15 January 2010, 12:20 pm | 2 comments | Tags: AutoCAD LT, drcauto, Evan Yares, LISP, LT Toolkit, Other Blogs | Category: AutoCAD, Customer Service, Development, LISP, Other Blogs, Tip Thanks to Brian and Rick for pointing out the availability of a hotfix for Raster Design 2010′s standalone/network license incompatibility. As a bonus, it also fixes some Raster Design / Civil 3D stability issues. The hotfix is available here, and as always with patches, fixes, service packs and updates, read the readme first. Note [...] 23 June 2009, 12:09 pm | Leave a comment | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Civil 3D, Licensing, Raster Design | Category: AutoCAD 2010, Bug, Customer Service, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Raster Design It’s time to examine how Autodesk has reacted to the widespread criticism of Revit 2010. Is Autodesk listening? To be more specific, is Autodesk’s Revit team listening? The Good It has been good to see extensive public participation by Autodesk people in various discussions in different places. The Revit team isn’t hiding. It is [...] 26 May 2009, 1:33 pm | 11 comments | Tags: 12-Month Release Cycle, AUGI Forums, Autodesk, Listening, Other Blogs, Other Products, Revit, Revit 2010, User Reaction | Category: AU2009, Autodesk, Autodesk University, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Rant, Thoughts Update (nee Service Pack) 3 for AutoCAD 2009 is now available. See Between the Lines for full details. As always, read the readme first. Here are the links: Readme AutoCAD 2009 AutoCAD LT 2009 AutoCAD 2009 for Revit Architecture AutoCAD 2009 for Revit Structure No word yet about related updates for the vertical products. [...] 14 May 2009, 1:46 pm | 6 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, CAD Management, Listening, Update | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Customer Service, Other Blogs I hesitate to cover this subject because my understanding of Revit is very close to nil. I’m going to cover it anyway, because it relates to the Does Autodesk Listen? theme that I’ve discussed here in the past. Revit 2010 has appeared with a Ribbon interface, and many users don’t like it. Some well-known [...] 11 May 2009, 4:26 pm | 6 comments | Tags: AUGI Forums, Autodesk, Listening, Other Blogs, Other Products, Revit, Revit 2010, User Interface, User Reaction | Category: Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs I have been in touch with various people at Autodesk about Raster Design 2010′s failure to work in a mixed standalone/network environment. These people have all been suitably apologetic, they assure me it wasn’t a deliberate move on Autodesk’s part, and that moves are afoot to provide a solution fairly soon. For example: Our [...] 27 April 2009, 12:00 am | 3 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Licensing, Raster Design | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, Customer Service, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Raster Design I was horrified to learn (in this Autodesk Discussion Group thread) that Autodesk has changed the rules as far as the way Raster Design licenses are handled. It’s quite possible that Autodesk has also done this with other products that I’m not yet aware of. If so, please comment and let me know. If [...] 20 April 2009, 4:40 pm | 10 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Idiocy, Licensing, Rant, Raster Design | Category: AutoCAD 2010, Customer Service, Interoperability, Other Autodesk Products, Rant, Raster Design I’ve added a link to Without A Net, a new blog on support issues, technical solutions, fixes, and tips for AutoCAD. It’s run by Tom Stoeckel, global technical lead for AutoCAD product support. In my limited experience, I’ve found Tom to be a fine fellow with his customers’ needs at heart. This blog promises [...] 16 April 2009, 12:30 pm | Leave a comment | Tags: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Blogs | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Blogs The responses to Carol Bartz’s blog post are an interesting read, and not just because of the astonishing amount of attention being paid to her language. One person pointed out how irritating it was to be “helped” by Yahoo’s dumb automated “support” system: I have never – repeat, NEVER – had a human response [...] 5 March 2009, 2:57 pm | 3 comments | Tags: Customer Service, Parcelforce, Rant, Web Stuff, Yahoo! | Category: Customer Service, Rant, Web Stuff Autodesk’s Executive Chairman of the Board (who has one or two other little jobs, too) has made a Yahoo! blog post in which she promises to kick a donkey, or something. Yahoo! if of only tangential interest to me; I don’t particularly care if it thrives or if it dies. However, it’s good to [...] 27 February 2009, 1:17 pm | One comment | Tags: Carol Bartz, Other Blogs, Yahoo! | Category: Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Blogs, Other Products, Other Sites, Web Stuff In this second part of the interview, the Autodesk trio continues to respond to the question about listening to customers. YouTube link. 8 February 2009, 7:06 pm | 6 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Eric Stover, Interview, Jon Page, Shaan Hurley, Video | Category: AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Customer Service, Interview, Video While attending the AutoCAD 2010 launch today, I took the opportunity to interview three Autodesk people: Eric Stover, Jon Page and Shaan Hurley. I raised the issue of Autodesk being seen as not listening to its customers, and was given a very comprehensive response. Here is the first of two parts of that interview. [...] 6 February 2009, 7:04 pm | 5 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Eric Stover, Interview, Jon Page, Shaan Hurley, Video | Category: AutoCAD 2010, Autodesk, Customer Service, Interview, Video I frequently see people remark that Autodesk doesn’t listen to its customers. I’ve made that remark myself in relation to certain specific items, most recently the botched discussion group update. Of the six Rate Autodesk polls, the Listening to its customers poll shows easily the biggest bias towards the wrong end of the graph. [...] 3 February 2009, 1:27 pm | 8 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Customer Service, Listening | Category: Autodesk, Comments, Customer Service Although I want to keep my list of links reasonably compact, it should not have taken until now to add the AutoCAD Insider blog of Autodesk’s Heidi Hewett to the list. Heidi’s idea of going through the AutoCAD alphabet is a great one, and I wish I had thought of it. blog nauseam has [...] 30 January 2009, 9:50 am | 2 comments | Tags: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Heidi Hewett, Other Blogs | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Customer Service, Other Blogs, Tip, Web Stuff |
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What would you ask Autodesk about Subscription and upgrades?
My post on Autodesk’s new upgrade pricing regime attracted a fair amount of comment, much of it critical of Autodesk.
So, let’s follow this up. Let’s say, just hypothetically, that you had an Autodesk high-up in front of you who was willing to answer questions about Subscription and upgrade policy. What would you ask? [...]