CAD Manager's Newsletter (#402)

How Will AutoCAD 2019 and Autodesk's New Licensing Approach Affect CAD Managers?

Although the "One AutoCAD" release may not feature big changes to the application itself, it does include major changes to what's included with AutoCAD, and how the software is licensed.

The new AutoCAD 2019 release hit the streets last week, bearing a limited list of new features but accompanied by significant licensing changes that may make you rethink how you handle your AutoCAD purchases. Dubbed "One AutoCAD," the new release seeks to provide more functionality than a vanilla seat of AutoCAD, but at a higher cost than AutoCAD 2018.

In this edition of the CAD Manager's Newsletter, we'll take a deeper look at the launch of One AutoCAD, and consider how Autodesk's approach to licensing and software delivery may affect our companies. After all, you know your boss is going to ask you about this, so the time to understand it all is now. Here goes.

New AutoCAD Features in the 2019 Release

In my article published on the day of One AutoCAD's release, I provided an overview of the new features, as well as my take on their usefulness. If you didn't get a chance to read that yet you may want to do so now, so the remainder of this discussion will make more sense.

One AutoCAD Rolls Many Verticals into One Product

Given the limited set of new features in AutoCAD 2019, it appears the meat of the new One AutoCAD is the inclusion of what used to be called "verticals" and are now called "toolsets." For example, what used to be a separate product called AutoCAD Architecture is now known as One AutoCAD's Architecture Toolset. As you can see in the illustration below, One AutoCAD comprises almost all the AutoCAD verticals, except Civil 3D.

One AutoCAD includes a variety of vertical extensions that were previously available as separate products. Civil 3D, however, will become Autodesk Civil 3D and will not be included with AutoCAD.

Initial Conclusions

Although it was just released, we can make several conclusions about One AutoCAD already. Those include:

• Desktop users won't notice any big changes. If you use AutoCAD as a standalone application on a workstation, you simply won't see much difference.
   
• If you don't need Internet connectivity or collaborative features, you won't care much either. If you don't send shared views, do markups, or plan to use the web-based AutoCAD solution, then you won't be using many of AutoCAD 2019's new features.

Read more »
 

Tools and Resources

Eagle Point Software Expands Pinnacle Series Content Library
Revit Live and Autodesk Insight content have been added to Eagle Point's Pinnacle Series, a training and productivity platform that provides access to customizable Autodesk learning paths, workflows, cheat sheets, videos, and support. The new additions join Autodesk titles such as AutoCAD Civil 3D, Revit, and 3ds Max Design.

Autodesk Offers Ebook about AEC Collaboration Trends
Interested parties can register to download How Connectivity, Collaboration, and Cloud Impact Design Professionals, a free ebook from Autodesk. Topics include a discussion of how readers can maximize their investment in building information modeling (BIM).
 

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