Category: <span>Polls</span>

Discarded Autodesk employees – how old were you when you were let go?

Some things have been mentioned to me privately that have made me curious. Curiosity is like an itch for me, I just have to scratch it. So here goes. If you have been let go, fired, made redundant, discarded, dumped, sacked, had your office closed, encouraged to take a termination offer, sidelined into an untenable position, failed to have your contract renewed or otherwise ceased your employment at Autodesk in a not-entirely-voluntary manner in the last ten years, I’d like to know how old you were at the time. There’s a poll in this post and in the left sidebar. …

Are your drawings SHOUTING?

This post was inspired by a question raised by Jamie Myers in the CAD Managers Unite! Facebook group. Long ago, before CAD was in common use, I was taught technical drawing at school. One of the things I was taught was to follow drafting standards, BS308 at the time. Later, I was expected to follow AS1100. One of the things I was taught was to always use capital letters in text on drawings, using the approved ISO font. Without a machine, without a template. This stuck to me to such an extent that even today I use all caps when …

Autodesk resellers also appear dissatisfied with Autodesk

I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and have reported the results individually. This is the final post on this set of polls. The usual caveats about online polls apply. Please note that for most of the poll respondents, I have no way of knowing if they really are/were resellers. Whoever they are, it would appear that the sentiment is global; over ten countries are represented in the voting logs. Although this poll appears to indicate that Autodesk is even less popular with its resellers than it is with its customers, the …

Autodesk customers distinctly dissatisfied with Autodesk

I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and will be reporting the results individually. The usual caveats about online polls apply.

This poll indicates that Autodesk customer satisfaction levels are perhaps not quite as elevated as they could be. The mean rating is 2.75, the median is 2 and the mode is 0. Yes, zero. Very dissatisfied customers outnumber very satisfied ones by nearly ten to one. That’s pretty emphatic.

If Autodesk had left its policies alone and tried to run a huge PR campaign to deliberately make itself as unpopular with its customers as possible, I doubt that it could have achieved anything like this poor a result. Congratulations, I guess.

Although this is an appalling result for Autodesk, it should come as no surprise to anyone. This reflects the sentiment I see pretty much everywhere, in a wide variety of online forums and when talking to all sorts of people in person.

Lesson for the day: there’s no point in spending a billion dollars a year on marketing if you’re going to do things that make you about as popular as a fart in an elevator.

Autodesk customers fairly satisfied with resellers

I have closed the three satisfaction rating polls I started a couple of months ago and will be reporting the results individually.

Let’s start on a positive note. The poll indicates that in general, you’re reasonably happy with your Autodesk resellers. The mean rating is 6.04, the median is 7 and the mode is 8. Given the unpopular message they’ve had to pass on lately, I think this is a pretty positive result.

Feel free to comment here if you wish to discuss any aspect of this. Are you happy with your reseller?

What’s changed at blog nauseam and why

Last week, blog nauseam died. This post explains the background to that. You’re probably not that interested, so feel free to skip to the dot points that list the changes that have resulted. The problem was a faulty WordPress installation was using excessive resources. This caused severe performance issues and resulted in the server software stepping in to throttle the site to prevent more widespread problems. The trigger for the WordPress fault has not been determined and may never be. This is somewhat akin to an old AutoCAD drawing suddenly going bad for unknown reasons. The problem may date back …

Autodesk and reseller satisfaction polls

Today I was asked to complete an Autodesk Reseller Satisfaction survey, which I was happy to do. My reseller does a good job. There was also a question about satisfaction with Autodesk.

I’ve shamelessly stolen Autodesk’s question and used it in a poll here. Please only respond if you are or were an Autodesk customer.

Customers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with Autodesk?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (39%, 69 Votes)
  • 1 (6%, 11 Votes)
  • 2 (12%, 22 Votes)
  • 3 (11%, 19 Votes)
  • 4 (5%, 9 Votes)
  • 5 (4%, 8 Votes)
  • 6 (6%, 11 Votes)
  • 7 (7%, 13 Votes)
  • 8 (3%, 6 Votes)
  • 9 (2%, 3 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (4%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 178

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I’ve added a similar poll about Autodesk resellers. Please only respond if you are or were a customer of Autodesk resellers.

Customers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with your Autodesk reseller?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (10%, 12 Votes)
  • 1 (2%, 3 Votes)
  • 2 (6%, 7 Votes)
  • 3 (5%, 6 Votes)
  • 4 (2%, 2 Votes)
  • 5 (17%, 21 Votes)
  • 6 (5%, 6 Votes)
  • 7 (13%, 17 Votes)
  • 8 (21%, 26 Votes)
  • 9 (8%, 10 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (13%, 16 Votes)

Total Voters: 126

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Here’s one just for Autodesk resellers. Please only respond if you are or were an Autodesk reseller.

Resellers - how would you rate your overall satisfaction with Autodesk?

  • 0 - Very dissatisfied (40%, 22 Votes)
  • 1 (11%, 6 Votes)
  • 2 (9%, 5 Votes)
  • 3 (15%, 8 Votes)
  • 4 (5%, 3 Votes)
  • 5 (4%, 2 Votes)
  • 6 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 7 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 8 (9%, 5 Votes)
  • 9 (4%, 2 Votes)
  • 10 - Very satisfied (4%, 2 Votes)

Total Voters: 55

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Feel free to comment here if you wish to discuss the ratings you provided.

Maybe I should complete the set and do polls for Autodesk and its resellers to rate their customers?

Schrodinger’s CEO – Autodesk top job speculation

In an earlier post, I asked for your votes on a pair of polls regarding Autodesk’s replacement for Carl Bass as CEO. Here are the final results from those polls. Although the details of who voted and for what will remain strictly and permanently confidential, I found it interesting to see a number of votes logged from IPs that originate from a well-known software company. I will get no more specific than that. First, here’s who you think is most likely to be appointed: Amar’s well ahead in the “person most likely” poll. But note the contrast with who you …

Minority interest in keep-your-perpetual Autodesk subscription idea

It’s undeniable that the vast majority of Autodesk’s customers don’t want to give up their perpetual licenses to sign up with Autodesk’s subscription (rental) model. I’ve gone through the evidence for this in an earlier post. To bring that up to date a little, here are the final results from the poll “Autodesk is ending the sale of perpetual licenses. This is: (Good/Bad)”: People are clearly attached to their perpetual licenses, regardless of what Autodesk does to manipulate prices. A while ago I floated the idea that Autodesk might possibly come up with a better offer; one that lets you …

New Autodesk subscription idea – any interest?

Let’s say Autodesk came up with a new offer for customers currently under maintenance. Let’s say you could switch to subscription (rental) with the same price as maintenance, locked in with no increases for three years. In addition, you get to retain, but not upgrade, your perpetual license. Let’s say you’re on maintenance which is up for renewal later this year. You currently have a perpetual license of AutoCAD 2018. If you accept this offer, you will always retain that AutoCAD 2018 license. You switch to subscription and pay the maintenance amount for one to three years. Your subscription fee …

The next Autodesk CEO – polls

Here, have some fun by voting in these polls. Idea shamelessly stolen from Paul Munford on Twitter.

Who do you want to be the next Autodesk CEO?

  • Amar Hanspal (18%, 32 Votes)
  • Andrew Anagnost (12%, 21 Votes)
  • Jeff Kowalski (7%, 13 Votes)
  • Amy Bunzel (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Other Autodesk person (5%, 8 Votes)
  • Elon Musk (28%, 50 Votes)
  • Other outsider (27%, 48 Votes)

Total Voters: 176

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Who do you think will be the next Autodesk CEO?

  • Amar Hanspal (41%, 53 Votes)
  • Andrew Anagnost (8%, 11 Votes)
  • Jeff Kowalski (11%, 14 Votes)
  • Amy Bunzel (2%, 2 Votes)
  • Other Autodesk person (5%, 7 Votes)
  • Elon Musk (11%, 14 Votes)
  • Other outsider (22%, 29 Votes)

Total Voters: 130

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Autodesk’s big Cloud failure

Back in 2011, Autodesk, some other vendors and many industry pundits were utterly convinced of the inevitable and near-imminent victory of Cloud-based CAD over standalone software. I wasn’t. I wanted to get a feel for how isolated my viewpoint was, so I started a poll and let it run for a while. Here’s how that turned out:   As you can see, this blog’s readers were less than convinced about the inevitability of that Cloudy future. Not so Carl Bass, who had this to say in an April 2012 TechCrunch interview: I’d say two to three years from now, every …

How do I know most Autodesk customers don’t want rental?

In a recent comment, I was asked how I know Autodesk’s move to all-rental is the opposite of what customers want. Have I conducted research? This is an excellent question and deserves a proper answer. So how do  I know this? Why am I so convinced? There are several independent sources of evidence, one bit of critical thinking and one undeniable proof. They all point in the same direction. First, a bit of evidence. There are many public places on the Internet where this issue has been discussed, including Autodesk’s own discussion groups. The viewpoints expressed everywhere are overwhelmingly against …

Polls and comments

As part of the site layout changes here, the polls were moved from the right sidebar to the left. The Polls Archive page remains unchanged. The new site layout is responsive, so if you’re using a narrow browser window (e.g. on a phone), the sidebars may be automatically suppressed. If so, you can still get at the current polls using this post. Feel free to use this post to comment on any aspect of these polls. From the main page (or search results) where the comments are not immediately visible, you can comment by clicking the number next to this …

MDT users and other Autodesk orphans, let’s have your good news stories!

I was going to ignore this subject, but I’ve changed my mind because it allows me to post something positive about Autodesk. After all, I do try to post positive things; it’s hardly my fault that Autodesk has a habit of making it difficult. In upFront eZine #756, Autodesk’s Andrew Anagnost (or was it Clay Helm?) had the following to say, and must say I agree totally with the first sentence: The best evidence is how we have behaved historically. When we included Mechanical Desktop with Inventor, the media complained that we were killing Mechanical Desktop; you were probably one of …

Why Autodesk’s Cloud push will fail, part 1 – failure defined

It’s probably unwise to make predictions about what is going to happen in technology. If so, I’m about to be unwise. So be it; if I’m wrong you can taunt me about this post in a few years. Here’s my prediction: Autodesk’s attempt to move CAD users onto the Cloud is doomed to failure. This is the first of a series of posts that will examine what I mean by that and the reasons behind it. The first thing that’s important to lay out is what I mean by failure. What I mean is that reality will not match Autodesk’s …

How good is Autodesk’s customer focus?

Autodesk has grown and prospered by always, as much as possible, placing the customer’s needs foremost. John Walker, 1990, The Autodesk File That was the dominant philosophy back in Autodesk’s ancient history, to the benefit of all. However, is that still the case today? I’m not going to offer an view one way or the other in this post. Instead, I will leave it open to the floor. Good or bad, please comment below using specific examples if you can. If you’re short of time, you can still use the poll on the right to express your opinion.

Should Autodesk provide a CHM version of its AutoCAD 2013 Help?

I’ve added a poll asking this question over on the right. I would like to see this done as soon as possible as a courtesy for those customers who find the current AutoCAD 2013 Help system inadequate. If you agree, vote Yes. If you disagree (for example, you think Autodesk should instead concentrate on improving the current system), vote No. If you wish to make a comment on this specific issue, feel free.

Trusting Autodesk – poll results

I have closed the polls asking if you trusted various companies to do the right thing by their customers. Here is a summary of the results, showing the percentage of “Yes” votes for each company. The most trusted company is at the top, the least trusted is at the bottom. Honda 69% Amazon 65% Target 52% Bricsys 43% Apple 36% Autodesk 23% Remember, this is not a scientific poll and as with all polls and surveys there will be some self-selection bias. Does anyone find anything about the above results surprising?

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 customers. The results of that poll look pretty awful for Autodesk. Right from the start, the distrusters have outnumbered the trusters by three to one, with the current results showing an overwhelming majority of respondents (77%) not trusting Autodesk. Why? What has Autodesk done in the …