One promoted benefit Software as a Service is that you are always up to date. There are no local applications to install and maintain. You don’t need to go through expensive and disruptive annual updates and/or install service packs or hotfixes; all this is taken care of for you. The latest and greatest software [...]
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It’s probably worth pointing out that if you you have no problem emailing your designs around the place without some form of protection or encryption, there’s little point in getting all worked up about Cloud security. Email isn’t remotely secure. FTP isn’t exactly watertight, either. If you’re still interested in Cloud security issues, this [...]  18 November 2011, 12:02 pm |  4 comments | Tags: 123D, Amazon, Cloud, Security, Terms and Conditions | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Legal, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Thoughts, Web Stuff In February 2010, I ran a poll to gauge your feelings about CAD in the Cloud and left it going until October 2010. Just over a month ago, I asked the same question again and ran an identical poll. I have closed that second poll, and here are the comparative results (new poll at [...] 17 November 2011, 8:45 am |  Leave a comment | Tags: Cloud, Damn Lies, Polls, Statistics | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Polls As I’ve already discussed, one of the areas where CAD on the Cloud shows potential is in handling specific tasks that require performing intensive calculations that are suitable for sharing among many processors. That sounds great in theory, and a lot of Cloud marketing (e.g. Virtually Infinite Computing) emphasises that point. OK, that sounds [...] 16 November 2011, 12:38 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Alex Bausk, Carl Bass, Cloud, Feedback, Hype, Labs, Project Storm | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Performance, Review, Spin, Web Stuff Steve: Another issue I have with Cloud-based environments is the lack of customisation. One of the things that makes AutoCAD so efficient for people is that they can get it exactly the way they want it. With a browser-based environment, we’re pretty much stuck with what you guys decide to give us. Can you [...] 11 November 2011, 10:08 am | Leave a comment | Tags: Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Labs | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Other Autodesk Products, Web Stuff Steve: Autodesk is currently giving away these Cloud-based services, Butterfly for example. Presumably you’re not going to keep doing that for ever. Are you going to start charging for these services eventually? Guri: Again, you’re pushing us to talk about future. Currently, for as long as this is in a Labs environment, we’re encouraging [...] 8 November 2011, 1:05 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Labs | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Other Autodesk Products, Web Stuff On 26 May 2010, I had the opportunity to ask Autodesk some questions about the Cloud in general and what was then Project Butterfly (now AutoCAD WS) in particular. The Autodesk people were: Guri Stark,Vice President, AutoCAD & Platform Products Tal Weiss, R&D Center Manager (Israel) Noah Cole, Corporate Media Relations The interview was [...] 4 November 2011, 10:12 am | Leave a comment | Tags: Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Labs | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Interview, Other Autodesk Products, Web Stuff Akamai is an Internet/Cloud infrastructure company, used extensively by Autodesk. To be polite, my experiences using its services over several years have been somewhat negative. Back in March, when trying to download the AutoCAD 2012 trial, I went through the usual Akamai download manager struggles before being informed of the wonderful Opera workaround (thanks [...] 3 November 2011, 10:19 am | 4 comments | Tags: Akamai, Cloud | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Customer Service, Fail, Rant, Web Stuff As reported by multiple on-line news outlets, Autodesk just announced that it is increasing its research and development budget (having slashed it last year), and increasing the percentage of that budget on the Cloud. Carl Bass: When there are technology transitions in place, you better be more mindful of that, or you become roadkill. [...] 2 November 2011, 10:17 am | 7 comments | Tags: Budget, Cloud, Development, Financial, Research | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Other Sites, Web Stuff In May 2010 I took part in a phone conference with several Autodesk people about the Cloud. Part of that discussion was in the form of an interview, which I will publish in later posts. Another part was in the form of a verbal presentation from Autodesk’s Tal Weiss, concentrating on what was then [...] 27 October 2011, 8:47 am | Leave a comment | Tags: Cloud, Collaboration, Interview, Tal Weiss | Category: AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Web Stuff OK, this one’s a biggie. For many, security is the biggest Cloud turn-off. Drawings are valuable property, and the thought of putting them up on the Internet is enough to give some people nervous twitches. I see two major worries: Is my property safe from destruction? Is it safe from unauthorised access (copying, modification, [...] I guess most of this blog’s readers also read WorldCAD Access and upFront.eZine, so it probably hasn’t escaped your notice that in the latest upFront.eZine, Ralph had procalimed “The Cloud is Dead” and referred to some of my recent posts here as supporting evidence. I’d just like to point out that it’s Ralph announcing [...] 26 October 2011, 1:57 pm | 2 comments | Tags: Cloud, Prophecy | Category: Cloud, Other Blogs, Other Sites, Thoughts, Web Stuff One argument that CAD in the Cloud supporters sometimes make is that the Cloud is taking over regardless of what anybody thinks, so we might as well just embrace it and reap the benefits. Nice try, Nostradamus, but I’ve been around computers long enough to see many Next Big Things come to nothing and [...] A frequently stated advantage of CAD on the Cloud is the access to large amounts of processing power. Instead of relying on your lowly local processor to perform complex tasks, you can instead zap the job up to the Cloud where vast numbers of processors churn away in massively parallel fashion and then zap the [...] 21 October 2011, 6:24 pm | Leave a comment | Tags: Cloud, Performance, Ribbon | Category: AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk, Cloud, Subscription, Web Stuff In the post Cloud benefits – collaboration, I asked for people’s real-life experiences using, or attempting to use AutoCAD WS. In particular, I’d like to hear about you using its features to collaborate with others, which is a major selling point of the Cloud. As the other post hasn’t seen any replies yet, I’ve [...] 20 October 2011, 11:06 am | Comments are closed | Tags: AutoCAD WS, Cloud, Collaboration | Category: AutoCAD WS, Cloud, Comments, Web Stuff One concern with any SaaS (Software as a Service) product is the potential for downtime. Is this really an issue? After all, big Cloud vendors have multiple server farms as part of their huge infrastructure investment. This provides redundancy to keep things going even in the event of a major local disaster or two. [...] I just used Autodesk Cloud Documents for the first time, and was asked to confirm my acceptance of the Terms of Service. Fair enough. But just what is in those terms, and what do they mean to you if you are dubious about using the Cloud? Will you be reassured by what you find [...] 14 October 2011, 9:57 pm | 21 comments | Tags: Cloud, Terms and Conditions | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Legal, Other Autodesk Products Early last year, I ran a poll to gauge your feelings about CAD in the Cloud. Here are the results of that poll: As you can see, the poll response bell curve was clearly biased toward the frightened end of the spectrum, and there was little in the way of excitement at the [...] Autodesk recently made a big announcement about its Cloud initiatives, and reactions have been all over the place. Some people can barely contain their breathless excitement while others are outraged to the point of passing out the pitchforks. Why? It’s pretty much business as usual. It’s nothing like Dassault’s disastrous we’re-moving-you-to-the-Cloud FUD campaign against [...] 30 September 2011, 1:00 pm | 3 comments | Tags: AutoCAD for Mac, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Hype, Labs | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Spin, Subscription, Thoughts, Web Stuff |
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Cloud concerns – trust
Using any software involves some degree of trust in the vendor. Using the Cloud requires a much higher level of trust.
Autodesk boss Carl Bass is a maker of carefully crafted things, so I’ll use that as an analogy. Using standalone software requires the sort of trust that a maker has in a tool [...]