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Autodesk Suites Are More than the Sum of Their Parts
23 Jun, 2011 By: Bill FaneNew product packages offer powerful programs at great discounts — but do they make sense for you?
This year, as always, Autodesk released new versions of its numerous software products. What was unusual this time around, however, was the introduction of a variety of software suites, which group the individual 2012 releases into bundles appropriate for various types of CAD users.
Right off the bat, this development generates a number of questions. Let's start with "Are these suites really beneficial?" The answer to that question is "Yes ... or no." If you need to "sell" your designs to clients, to customers, or to management, then the answer is "Yes." If you are designing things like factory layouts, consumer goods, industrial machines, buildings, cars, boats, or airplanes, then the answer is still "Yes."
On the other hand, if you are designing things such as punch press die sets or electrical schematic diagrams for clients or for in-house use you probably don't need photorealistic real-time animations or free-form sculpted surfaces, so you can skip the rest of this article and go read Lynn Allen's latest article instead.
Suites for the Sweet
Now let's go back and take a look at the Autodesk suites to see what species of critter they be. I'll admit that when I logged off at the end of the media webcast that introduced these new offerings, I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.
I was underwhelmed because they seemed to be just a simple bundling of existing products. The concept behind them is that many companies use more than one Autodesk product — or at least with Autodesk's current emphasis on "digital prototyping," they think that more companies should be using multiple products.
For example, a swizzle stick manufacturer needs to go from initial styling concept sketches to a detailed design, including stress analysis to make sure the swizzle stick won't break when it hits an olive in the drink, through photorealistic renderings for management presentations, then on to injection mold design and plastic flow analysis, CNC G-code programming to sink the die cavity, and the factory layout to manufacture, package, and ship the final
product.
Okay, so suites seem to be a simple bundling exercise to get us to buy more software. Underwhelming. More on this later.
On the other hand, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of software. Autodesk offers thirteen basic suites covering the full market range, including general design, architectural, building, infrastructure, factory, plant, product design, and entertainment creation. The latter category includes games, TV, and film production. In addition, many suites are available in up to three editions (Standard, Premium, and Ultimate), depending on which programs that they contain.
For example, the Product Design Standard suite ($5,495) starts with AutoCAD Mechanical, Vault Sketchbook Designer, Showcase, and Mudbox. Premium ($6,495) adds 3ds Max Design and Inventor, while the Ultimate suite ($9,995) adds Alias Design and upgrades Inventor to Inventor Professional. Purchased separately, the components of the Ultimate suite would come to $21,515.
All these options yield a total of more than two dozen suites. My brain hurts.
How Suite It Is
The number one plays heavily when discussing the advantages of suites:
- One purchase at one discounted price gets you all your software at savings of up to 80% when compared with buying the component programs individually.
- One run of the usual SETUP.EXE program installs everything in one hit.
- Everything in one suite comes on one single 16-gigabyte or 32-gigabyte (!) USB thumb drive. In addition, 32-bit and 64-bit applications are included on the same stick, and the install program knows which one to use. There is no need to worry about ordering the wrong version, or about shuffling numerous DVDs during installation.
- One serial number runs everything.
- After you finish the installation, activating any one product activates them all. If you chose not to install all the components initially, then you can come back later and add other items. They are automatically pre-activated.
- Where practical, Autodesk has tried to give one consistent look and feel to the user interfaces of all the different applications.
Autodesk hasn't finished implementing its announced intention to use one standard file format for all its products, but the company is heading in that direction. Meanwhile, the components in a suite can usually write to and read from the formats of the other components.
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AutoCAD Tips!
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst! |
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