Autodesk has announced a little while ago that they will now offer Autodesk Inventor as a standard Suite which they have done for years as well as now by itself without the AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical components.
Now why the new offering? Well, it is a slightly lower cost than the standard AutoCAD Inventor Suite and is designed for the markets that really don't utilize ACAD in their standard processes. Oddly enough I still come in contact with a lot of users that don't understand that when you get AutoCAD Inventor Suite you DO get AutoCAD. Hence the renaming they did in 2010 from Inventor Suite to AutoCAD Inventor Suite.
This fact alone is a HUGE benefit over other 3D software considering most other software yearly fees are more expensive and you have to add AutoCAD on top that yearly cost to subscription as well to perform standard duties. All in all, this new offering has the potential to lower that impact further if no ACAD component is involved and give Autodesk clients more options when it comes to their 3D software.
For those keeping track here are the current offerings: Autodesk Matrix
- AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite (comes with AutoCAD LT)
- Autodesk Inventor LT
- Autodesk Inventor (New Offering)
- AutoCAD Inventor Suite (AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical)
- AutoCAD Inventor Simulation (FEA and Dynamic Simulation)
- AutoCAD Inventor Routed Systems (Cable and Rigid Systems)
- AutoCAD Inventor Tooling (Plastic Part and Complete Molds)
- AutoCAD Inventor Professional (includes Sim, RS, and Tooling)
Thanks for the update on the AutoCAD software. It will be really interesting to see where this continues to develop.
Posted by: Manufacturing Software | 12/08/2010 at 12:06 PM