Autodesk has just released the latest iteration of its free online CAD app, AutoCAD WS. It’s available directly via your browser or as iOS, Mac or Android apps. This is the closest Autodesk has yet come to showing us what real CAD in the Cloud can do. Autodesk has now had three years’ work behind it [...]
 19 December 2012, 2:03 pm |  8 comments | Tags: AutoCAD WS, Cloud, Review | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD WS, Autodesk, Cloud, Review, Web Stuff In a recent post on Between the Lines, Shaan passed on the following response from the AutoCAD Team: There has been some recent discussions about the built-in help system in AutoCAD 2013, both positive and some criticism. As our longtime users know, AutoCAD help has been through many evolutions. We are particularly proud of [...] 20 September 2012, 5:00 pm | 5 comments | Tags: Cloud, Documentation, Help, Navisworks, Shaan Hurley | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Autodesk, Bug, Cloud, Customer Service, Fail, Other Autodesk Products, Other Blogs, Rant, Spin, Thoughts, Tip, Web Stuff Last week, Autodesk released Service Pack 1 for AutoCAD 2013, and then removed it a few days later. Service Pack 1 for AutoCAD 2013 has been temporarily removed due to a newly discovered fatal error. The AutoCAD team is actively working on resolving this and a new service pack will be posted here as soon [...] 27 August 2012, 12:34 pm | 22 comments | Tags: Beta software, Cloud, Feedback, SaaS, Service Pack | Category: AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2013, Cloud, Fail, Subscription, Thoughts I’ve made the point before that while Cloud proponents like Autodesk have been happy to talk big on the potential benefits, they have been conspicuously (suspiciously?) silent on the legitimate concerns their customers have raised. The best responses you have been likely to see regarding such concerns can best be characterised as “glossing over”. [...] 30 May 2012, 5:28 pm | 18 comments | Tags: Autodesk, Autodesk 360, Cloud | Category: Autodesk, Cloud, Legal, Spin, Web Stuff In an email to Subscription customers, Autodesk made several announcements about its Autodesk 360 Cloud services. Subscription users now get 25 GB per seat of Cloud storage, up from 3 GB. Non-Subscription users who create an Autodesk 360 account get 3 GB. The intent here, as with the trebling of upgrade costs, is to get [...] 4 May 2012, 12:25 pm | 4 comments | Tags: Cloud, Subscription | Category: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Cloud, Other Autodesk Products, Subscription, Web Stuff …for some things. The other day, I amused myself by creating a video using a site called Xtranormal. You’ve probably seen 3D cartoon-like videos of people with stilted voices. It’s done by signing up for a free account, choosing a background and some characters, then typing in your script. This is converted, generally fairly [...] 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 [...] 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 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 [...] 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 | 8 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 | 8 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 |
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Why don’t you trust Autodesk?
As I mentioned earlier, any company that wants to move its customers to the Cloud is going to need the trust of those customers. Three months ago, I started a poll to try to get some measure of how trustworthy you consider Autodesk to be, in terms of doing the right thing by its [...]