Tag Archives: Subscription

BricsCAD V19 promo pricing ends 15 December

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I’ve previously explained the changes to BricsCAD pricing that came in with V19, and showed how the prices for new purchases would rise when the promotional period ends.

Upgrading now requires All-In. Problem?

One change I failed to point out, but which was mentioned by a commenter, was that for customers not already on the All-In Maintenance program, they needed to sign up for one year’s All-In in addition to paying the upgrade fee. This meant the upgrade fee was significantly greater than in previous years because customers were effectively paying for two upgrades (e.g. V18 to V19 as an upgrade, plus V19 to V20 covered by All-In).

Although this still represented good value compared with the competition and recent BricsCAD upgrades have proven to be well worth the money, there was still a ‘sticker shock’ effect associated with this double payment, and people who budgeted for upgrades based on previous pricing found themselves in a bind. There were complaints from customers and partners. For Bricsys, accustomed to being the good guys in terms of CAD pricing and licensing fairness, this was an unusual situation.

Fixing the problem

On 16 November, Bricsys responded to this feedback by introducing significantly reduced prices in this scenario, and committing to making good with those customers who already paid the higher prices. How significantly reduced? About half. To give you an idea, an upgrade of BricsCAD Pro V18 to V19 (and later to V20 thanks to All-In) is about US$425 or €400.

I don’t see much to complain about there. It’s great to see a company that actually listens to its customers and acts accordingly, even when doing so costs real money.

However, it’s important to note that this lower upgrade pricing only applies during the promotional period that had already been announced for new license pricing. That period ends on 15 December (i.e. prices go up from 16 December). To make things very plain, at the time of writing:

BricsCAD promotional pricing for both upgrades and new purchases will end in two days.

This only affects on-demand upgraders

None of the above has any effect on customers who were already on the All-In program. That program has always represented the best value way of keeping BricsCAD up to date; I recommend getting on it and staying on it. You can of course hop off it in the future if Bricsys one day fails to keep you happy with its upgrades. Although you’re effectively paying for upgrades in advance it’s still a perpetual license system, which gives you the ability to keep playing even when you stop paying.

There is also the option of the rarely-used subscription (rental) pricing for those cases where licenses are not needed long-term or need to be assigned to a specific project. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my thoughts on that licensing model. If you need it, fine. If you don’t, you shouldn’t be strong-armed into adopting it.

Perspective

Bear in mind that with all this talk of rising prices, a little perspective is useful. Based on currently-available pricing, the 3-year cost of BricsCAD Pro including All-In in the USA is $1615, compared with $4605 for AutoCAD on subscription. At the end of the 3 years, you will have a perpetual license of the then-current version of BricsCAD Pro, or you will have nothing at all if you had spent 2.85 times as much to rent AutoCAD.

If you look beyond 3 years (and some customers of mine have AutoCAD licenses ten times that age) then the difference in the value proposition between the products becomes even more dramatic. You’re all smart people with calculators and spreadsheets, so I invite you to do your own comparisons.

Reminder: if you want to get the absolute best value for money from a BricsCAD purchase, remember to do it on or before 15 December. If you do decide to buy, and also want to support this blog, then please use this link to do so:

Bricsys Store

Disclosure: this is a sponsored link. If you buy a Bricsys product using this link, I get part of the proceeds. However, this will not have any effect on the editorial content of this blog. I don’t expect to be able to retire on the proceeds from this link (if any) and I will continue to write what I honestly think about the CAD products and policies of all companies, as I see fit.

BricsCAD V19 – pricing changes explained

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The BricsCAD V19 release has not only given us a new software release (an excellent one – and I’ll be writing about that later), it’s also given us a new Bricsys website and a new pricing structure. In some cases prices are actually slightly lower, but in the vast majority of cases the movement is up. The price movement varies by product, market and currency, and depends largely on whether you choose to opt for All-in Maintenance. The aim of this post is to clarify exactly what has happened to Bricsys prices.

One significant change across the board is the way All-in Maintenance is priced. It was previously a fixed amount (e.g. US$220) to pre-emptively keep up to date with each of the three BricsCAD types (Classic, Pro and Platinum). Now it’s a percentage (e.g. 30%), which means All-in is now cheaper than it was for Classic users and more expensive for everyone else.

You’ll also note that the rarely-used subscription (rental) pricing is now much easier to find on the web site. The annual cost equates to about 40% of the cost of a perpetual license.

Those 30% and 40% figures look high, but remember that they’re a percentage of much smaller sums than you get with Autodesk. For example, the difference between buying BricsCAD Pro with and without All-in is US$255. Going Subscription (rental) for a year is $488. For comparison, keeping an old perpetual AutoCAD license up to date is in the region of US$500+ (it varies considerably under different circumstances) and the current annual AutoCAD subscription cost in the USA is US$1575 (bear in mind that this now includes access to various AutoCAD-based verticals).

Let’s compare the BricsCAD prices before and after these changes. First, US$ prices without All-in. Note that none of these prices include taxes.

US$ BricsCAD Classic BricsCAD Pro BricsCAD Platinum BricsCAD BIM BricsCAD Mechanical
V18 590 750 1110 1760 1630
V19 590 770 1110 1720 1630

As you can see, there is very little price movement at all here. Note that these V19 prices are promotional, which means they won’t stay at this level for ever. (Edit: the promotional prices apply until 16 December 2018).

The Euro prices have moved up a little more:

Euro BricsCAD Classic BricsCAD Pro BricsCAD Platinum BricsCAD BIM BricsCAD Mechanical
V18 480 640 990 1540 1440
V19 525 725 1050 1590 1500

A more useful comparison can be made by comparing the prices including All-in, because (temporary conditions excepted) this is the cheapest way of keeping up to date, and the way I’d usually recommend paying for BricsCAD. I’ve included the post-promotion prices here so you can get an idea of the total movement.

US$ BricsCAD Classic BricsCAD Pro BricsCAD Platinum BricsCAD BIM BricsCAD Mechanical
V18 810 970 1330 2100 1940
V19 (Promotion) 781 1025 1470 2275 2155
V19 (Standard) 825 1105 1560 2405 2275

Here’s the same thing in Euros:

Euro BricsCAD Classic BricsCAD Pro BricsCAD Platinum BricsCAD BIM BricsCAD Mechanical
V18 680 840 1190 1840 1720
V19 (Promotion) 701 965 1391 2115 1995
V19 (Standard) 760 1040 1475 2275 2145

The upshot is that for most customers, buying and maintaining the low-end Classic product is slightly cheaper than it was, but as you move up the product range, the price increases start to bite. However, the total cost of ownership is still significantly lower than AutoCAD. The following table shows the total licensing costs over several time periods, assuming no price increases from anybody. Yes, I know that’s not a reasonable assumption, but at least it precludes guesswork! The ongoing annual All-in price is assumed to be 30% of the non-promotional product cost.

US$ 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year 10 Year
BricsCAD Classic (All-in) 781 1276 1771 3009
BricsCAD Pro (All-in) 1025 1688 2351 4009
BricsCAD Platinum (All-in) 1470 2406 3342 5682
BricsCAD Classic (Subscription) 312 936 1560 3120
BricsCAD Pro (Subscription) 410 1230 2050 4100
BricsCAD Platinum (Subscription) 588 1764 2940 5880
AutoCAD (subscription) 1575 4725 7875 15750
AutoCAD LT* (subscription) 390 1170 1950 3900

* Note that I have included AutoCAD LT here for comparison even though it is a significantly less capable product than BricsCAD Classic, which has 3D and full LISP capabilities.

In addition, BricsCAD Platinum plus Sheet Metal is now called BricsCAD Mechanical, with the price including All-in going from US$1940 to US$2155 ($2275 after promotion). Euro prices go from €1720 to €1995 (€2145 after promotion). Similarly, BricsCAD Platinum plus BIM is now called BricsCAD BIM, with the price including All-in going from US$2100 to US$2275 ($2405 after promotion). Euro prices go from €1840 to €2115 (€2275 after promotion).

It’s worth noting that the price of Communicator, the Bricsys format translator, has dropped slightly in most cases despite providing more format translation options.

If you intend buying a Bricsys product and also want to support this blog, then please use this link:

Bricsys Store

Disclosure: this is a sponsored link. If you buy a Bricsys product using this link, I get part of the proceeds. However, this will not have any effect on the editorial content of this blog. I don’t expect to be able to retire on the proceeds from this link (if any) and I will continue to write what I honestly think about the CAD products and policies of all companies, as I see fit.

Autodesk Fusion 360 massive subscription price rise/drop

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Autodesk’s cloud-based 3D design tool, Fusion 360, is changing price and structure from 7 October 2018. Whether it’s a huge price rise or a huge price drop depends on your perspective.

Price rise

The current annual subscription cost for Fusion 360 is US$310 and that’s going to change to US$495, which represents a 60% price increase. Existing subscribers are being kept at the same annual rate of US$310 or US$300 (depending on when you first subscribed) “for as long as you renew”. Existing subscribers, that looks like a promise to never increase your prices as long as you keep up the payments. Make sure you capture and retain all of Autodesk’s statements on this matter, in case that promise eventually gets forgotten.

However, for that amount you’ll now be getting the same features that are currently in Fusion 360 Ultimate; the lesser and greater versions are being amalgamated and just called Fusion 360.

Price drop

The current annual subscription cost for Fusion 360 Ultimate is US$1535. As that’s going to change to US$495, that represents a 68% price drop.

Is it fair?

If you currently use Fusion 360, even if you have no use for Advanced Simulation, Advanced Manufacturing or Generative Design, it’s not bad news. The only downside is that you’ll now be paying more if you need to add seats, or if you temporarily drop and resume subscription.

If you currently use Fusion 360 Ultimate, you are probably going to be overjoyed at spending a lot less in future. If you just paid US$3,070.00 for a 2-year subscription that’s about to be worth US$990, you might be less pleased. To assuage your ire, Autodesk will be giving you (and all existing annual subscribers) another 24 months subscription, gratis. Still, depending on the term length and renewal timing, some customers are going to be much luckier than others. That might annoy the less fortunate.

I think Autodesk has been very fair and reasonable with the way it has handled these changes. However, it does serve as a reminder that once you’re a subscriber, you’re at the mercy of your software company.

Explaining the four tiers of AutoCAD license

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Yesterday’s tiers

Once upon a time, long long ago, you could buy AutoCAD with or without sets of features  called Advanced Drafting Extensions (ADE) containing optional extras such as dimensioning. At one stage you could buy four tiers of AutoCAD license at different prices:

  1. AutoCAD
  2. AutoCAD + ADE1
  3. AutoCAD + ADE2 (incorporating ADE1)
  4. AutoCAD + ADE3 (incorporating ADE1 and ADE2)

(Interestingly, the above situation is similar to the current arrangement with BricsCAD, where BricsCAD Classic, Pro and Platinum are available with incrementing prices and feature sets, with BricsCAD BIM and Sheet Metal available on top of Platinum).

As almost everybody bought AutoCAD + ADE3 anyway, the ADEs were eventually absorbed into the main product and AutoCAD became just AutoCAD again. Later, the AutoCAD line would split again into AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD, and various AutoCAD-based vertical products such as AutoCAD Mechanical and Civil 3D.

Today’s tiers

Fast forward thirty-odd years and AutoCAD licenses are again available in four tiers (even if we ignore AutoCAD LT and Civil 3D). For an AutoCAD 2019 user, these are:

  1. A perpetual license holder who allowed maintenance to lapse after activating AutoCAD 2019.
  2. A perpetual license holder still under maintenance.
  3. A subscription user who switched from maintenance under the Move to Subscription offer prior to the release of AutoCAD 2019.
  4. A subscription user who switched from maintenance under the Move to Subscription offer after the release of AutoCAD 2019 or who started a new full-price subscription at any time.

Note that Tier 1, etc. is my description of the category and not Autodesk’s.

What the tiers mean

This table shows what is available to customers in each of the above tiers:

Tier Perpetual Usage Updates Support Cloud Shared Views Web/Mobile Toolsets
1
2
3
4

Here’s what the table headings mean:

  • Perpetual – a perpetual license that allows continued use into the future without requiring further payment.
  • Usage – rights to use the license at home, use of previous versions and internationally.
  • Updates – formerly known as Service Packs, these bug fixes and minor feature enhancements are withheld from customers who are not actively paying Autodesk.
  • Support – the ability to log a service request that will be addressed by a technician. There are actually multiple levels depending on how much you pay: Basic, Advanced and, for subscription users, the ability to schedule a call to talk to somebody.
  • Cloud – online services such as storage and rendering.
  • Shared Views – formerly available to all AutoCAD 2017 and 2018 users, this feature was renamed, updated and made subscription-only in AutoCAD 2019.
  • Web/Mobile – the AutoCAD Web and AutoCAD Mobile App viewer/markup tools.
  • Toolsets – the ‘Only One AutoCAD’ set of AutoCAD-based verticals now called Specialized Toolsets (excluding Civil 3D). Note that if you’re a customer in Tier 3 who originally had a vertical product (e.g. AutoCAD Mechanical), you will still have access to that toolset and plain AutoCAD, but not the others.

Moving to three tiers

Felice at Autodesk has explained that Autodesk plans to move everybody in Tier 3 to Tier 4 at some point in the future (subject to legal disclaimers). But for now, if you took up the Move to Subscription offer at the wrong time, you don’t yet have access to Specialized Toolsets.

Thanks are due to Felice for patiently answering my questions to clarify the situation and explain the detail.

Fix released for Autodesk subscription licensing error (yes, another one)

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Providing yet another entry in the it’ll never happen again file, Autodesk has issued a fix for an AutoCAD 2018 subscription licensing crash.

Thankfully, it’s not compulsory to use the execrable Autodesk desktop app or malware-like Akamai download manager to obtain this fix. There are direct links for the 32-bit and 64-bit fixes.

Lessons we learned from this:

  • AutoCAD doesn’t just phone home once every 30 days to maintain even a long-term a subscription license, it phones home 24 hours later too. And probably every 24 hours after that.
  • Desktop software that relies on the internet to continue working is a terrible idea.
  • Yes, it will happen again.

Autodesk subscription price rise certainty

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In my previous posts exploring the costs associated with various CAD software licensing scenarios, there was always a need for assumptions because Autodesk had failed to provide any pricing information beyond a point a year or so from now. As a result, expecting the worst appeared to be the safest strategy.

To Autodesk’s credit, this situation is now partially addressed. From this Autodesk web page:

We’re extending our price commitment through 2028 for customers who continue to renew after they switch. The special Move to Subscription renewal suggested retail price will increase by no more than 5% in 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027. There will be no change to the renewal suggested retail price in 2022, 2024, 2026 and 2028.

There are some weasel words in the fine print that allow Autodesk some wriggle room, but let’s go with the numbers we have. It works out to an increase of 21.5% by 2027. If you’ve already switched and you’re paying $1000 a year then you’ll be paying $1215 a year in 2027 and 2028. That’s a pretty reasonable level of increase. Of course, the total number of dollars you’ll hand over is several times higher than for, say, keeping a permanent license of BricsCAD up to date.

The above refers to customers who give up their perpetual licenses that are currently under maintenance and switch to subscription (rental) under the special conditions of the Move to Subscription offer. Pricing is still in the air for you millions of stubborn users who insist on owning your software licenses, and for those who are paying sky-high rates under the conventional subscription deal.

There are also no guarantees about what you’ll be paying for. If AutoCAD 2019‘s anything to go by, you can expect little improvement, feature removal and poorer performance.

Having trouble authorising Autodesk products?

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You’re not alone. At the time of writing, the Autodesk license service at auth.autodesk.com is down, so if you need a response from that service before your software will work you’re likely to be severely out of luck.

That’s more likely to be inconvenient if you’re on subscription rather than a perpetual license, because Autodesk subscription software phones home every month. Yes, even if you have a 3-year license.

An email exchange with a friend about AutoCAD

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Here’s an email exchange I just had with a friend. He’s a local person who I don’t normally discuss CAD with. He works for an architect. He has given me permission to use this discussion here.

Hi Steve,

We are looking to update from 2007 and 2010 versions in the office to more recent versions of Autodesk’s AutoCAD.

We don’t need full version but if that’s what is available ok then. Lite version is ok as we use for 2D architectural only. We use other packages when 3D work required.

We also have call to open consultants drawings which may be prepared on full versions or other packages.

Can you let me know what the last version that didn’t require the annual subscription and is available and likely cost?

Much appreciated if you could help.

Cheers

Here’s my reply:

You’re out of luck. Regardless of the release, you can now only pay for AutoCAD by annual subscription (which now means rental and used to mean pre-paid upgrades). Cost is currently AUD $2605 a year. Autodesk occasionally does an “upgrade” promotion for old releases but it’s really just a rental discount (15% at the moment) and means throwing away your perpetual license. If you stop paying, you have nothing, not even your old release. Here’s the link:

https://www.autodesk.com.au/products/autocad/subscribe

There’s currently a 20% off deal for AutoCAD LT rental at AUD $460 a year, which ends in a couple of days:

https://www.autodesk.com.au/products/autocad-lt/subscribe

If you just want to convert back to AutoCAD 2007 or 2010 DWG format and work in that, you have a few options. One is Autodesk’s DWG TrueView, which is a free very cut-down AutoCAD that will allow you to open new DWG and save in earlier releases.

https://www.autodesk.com.au/products/dwg/viewers

Another free option is BricsCAD Shape, which actually gives you more open/save options for drawings than AutoCAD itself, as well as being a 3D architectural modelling application.

https://www.bricsys.com/en-intl/shape/

There’s another free 2D application called DraftSight but that’s not keeping up to date with the DWG versions (it’s still on 2013 format):

https://www.draftsight2018.com/

If you want an AutoCAD-like perpetual license product for 2D drafting that will work directly with the current DWG format, you can’t go past BricsCAD. Works just like AutoCAD, uses the same files, up to date with current versions.

Full perpetual license is AUD $765 for the Classic version or AUD $1010 including a year’s maintenance. After that, keeping up to date at AUD $320 per year is cheaper than any option Autodesk has, even for renting LT. You can alternatively just pay your $765 once and do the buy-upgrades-whenever-you-want thing that Autodesk stopped doing years ago. It also gives you an upgrade path to full 3D and even BIM if you want to do that further down the track.

https://www.bricsys.com/en-intl/bricscad/

It’s a quick download and install which won’t harm your AutoCAD installation. You’ll probably find BricsCAD will work noticeably faster than any recent AutoCAD, which has got very bloated in recent years. This is particularly obvious if you’re running older hardware.

No, I’m not on commission!

Autodesk remotely killswitches AutoCAD licenses – again

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Following the AutoCAD 2019 rollout disaster, where subscription users found their AutoCAD 2018s were broken by an Autodesk licensing system meltdown, Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost issued an apology. He also assured customers on Twitter that it wouldn’t happen again:

While I welcomed that, I did have this to say at the time:

I don’t think such a guarantee is realistic, given that the nature of subscription software is to only work when it knows you’ve paid up. At least it demonstrates that the desire is there right at the top to try to prevent such debacles from occurring in future.

Autodesk watchers know that words mean little and actions are everything. I look forward to Andrew sharing news of the actions he’ll be taking to make good on his promise.

Back to the present. Does it come as a surprise to anybody to discover that less than a month later, Autodesk has again accidentally remotely killswitched people’s licenses? Again, not just the new release, but 2018 too. As reported on Twitter and www.asti.com:

After a couple of exchanges, the always-responsive people on the @AutodeskHelp Twitter feed came back with this:

So it’s fixed, but CAD Managers now have a bunch of work to do at their end to deal with a problem created at the Autodesk end. Somebody screwed up, they fixed it, another apology is issued, stuff happens, life goes on.  That’s it for this month, probably. But it doesn’t address a very fundamental problem.

Let’s go back to basics.

The primary function of a licensing system is to allow use of the product by legitimate users.

Everything else is secondary. If a system relies on phoning home and getting the required response from a remote system before you’re permitted to use the software you paid for, not just after installation but on an ongoing basis, then it’s fundamentally flawed from the user’s point of view. Yet that is the system that Autodesk has chosen to base its business on.

No amount of sincere, deeply felt apologies or it’ll-never-happen-again promises will alter the fact that Autodesk has put its own convenience ahead of the ability of paying customers to use what they have paid for. Will Autodesk change that state of affairs? I very much doubt it, in which case it’s inevitable that this kind of thing will happen again, whatever anyone might promise.

Why One AutoCAD is smart strategy

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OK, so Autodesk may have blown the AutoCAD 2019 rollout, triggering an apology from CEO Andrew Anagnost.

OK, AutoCAD 2019 may have the smallest set of significant advances in the history of AutoCAD releases. If you’re wondering, I give it 1/10. The “there can be only one” hype could easily refer to meaningful improvements to the product per year. This year’s improvement is… drawing compare!

Still, AutoCAD 2019 is a significant release for reasons beyond the content of the core product. An examination of the One AutoCAD strategy reveals a collective corporate mind that’s smarter than it’s being given credit for.

In case you’ve missed it, the idea behind One AutoCAD is that if you subscribe to AutoCAD, you can now also get a bunch of vertical variants of AutoCAD thrown in, renamed as “Toolsets”. You need to ask for it, and it’s for renters only, no perpetual license owners need apply. Oh, and Civil 3D isn’t part of the deal.

This concept has been received less than enthusiastically among respected independent observers such as Ralph Grabowski and Robert Green. I’m going to go against the trend a little and point out several ways in which this is a smart move for Autodesk.

  • It represents the first time Autodesk has had anything of substance to positively differentiate between maintenance and subscription. Until now, it’s all been negative: give away your perpetual licenses to avoid forthcoming maintenance price increases.
  • It provides some substance to Dr Anagnost’s “give us a year to show the value of subscription” request to customers. OK, it may have taken a lot more than a year, but at least it’s now possible to point to something that customers can gain by subscribing, rather than having the embarrassment of an empty promise hanging around.
  • It acts as an effective distraction from yet another price rise (7% on top of Autodesk’s already sky-high subscription costs). Yes, this new price still applies even if you don’t use the toolsets. Yes, it still applies even if you’re a Mac user who doesn’t have these toolsets available.
  • It will almost certainly be used as justification for future subscription price rises. How can you complain about a few more dollars when you get all those products included in the price?
  • This stuff has already been developed to a point that Autodesk considers mature (web apps excluded), and it isn’t costing Autodesk anything to “give it away”.
  • It means that the glacial or non-existent rate of improvement of AutoCAD and its variants suddenly appears less important. How can you complain that nothing worthwhile has been added to your AutoCAD variant this year when you now have access to hundreds more commands than you used to have? This line has already been tried with me on Twitter.
  • It provides a marketing counter-argument against competitors who sell DWG-based AutoCAD-compatible products that provide above-AutoCAD standards of functionality (e.g. BricsCAD).
  • If an increased number of users start using the vertical variants, there will be increased pressure on those competitors to handle the custom objects created using those variants. This will act as a distraction and reduce the ability of those competitors to out-develop Autodesk at the rate that has been occurring for the past few years.

There are a couple of flies in Autodesk’s One AutoCAD ointment:

  • Critical mass – it has yet to be seen how many customers are so won over by this concept that they sign up for it. Remember that it’s only available to a minority of customers anyway, and if the bulk of customers remain reluctant to give up their perpetual licenses then all this is moot. If the move-to-rental numbers are small, then the anti-competitive nature of this move is negated. The marketing gains still apply, though.
  • Interoperability – traditionally, the AutoCAD-based verticals add custom objects to the core AutoCAD objects, which when opened in vanilla AutoCAD or another vertical, appear as proxy objects that either don’t appear or will provide very limited access. Improved but still limited access can be provided if Object Enablers are installed. Object Enablers are not always available for the AutoCAD variant you want to use. LT? Mac? Old releases? Forget it.This has always been a highly unsatisfactory arrangement. I have worked for a company that explicitly prohibits drawings containing proxy objects and rejects any it receives, and that has proven to be a smart policy. Also, the vertical variants of AutoCAD have always had hidden DWG incompatibilities built in. AutoCAD 2015 user? Try to use a DWG file that has been created in a 2017 vertical variant. Good luck with that, even though all those releases supposedly use 2013 format DWG. Paradoxically, you can expect to experience much better DWG interoperability with non-Autodesk products and their add-ons than you will with AutoCAD and its verticals, because the non-Autodesk products are forced to work with AutoCAD native objects. It remains to be seen how, when, or even if Autodesk addresses these issues.

In summary, this strategy has potential to significantly benefit Autodesk. Will it work? That will largely depend on how many customers are prepared to put aside their mistrust enough to hand over their perpetual licenses to Autodesk. That mistrust is mighty large (Autodesk’s been working hard for years on building it up) and recent sorry-we-broke-your-rental-software events have reiterated just how valuable those perpetual licenses are.

Autodesk has produced what it considers to be a very attractive carrot. Is it big and juicy enough to attract you?

AutoCAD 2019 rollout disaster

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If you’re an AutoCAD user, you may have been intrigued by the news about the new way Autodesk is bundling up AutoCAD 2019 with various verticals (perpetual license owners need not apply). This is Autodesk’s latest attempt to promote its subscription model and raise prices again. 7% this time, but much more to come. But never mind that, the main point is that you’re getting a whole lot of stuff, and who could say that’s not a good thing?

So it’s most unfortunate for Autodesk that the AutoCAD 2019 rollout has been an unmitigated disaster.

My own experiences in trying to download the product were sub-optimal, but I later learned that I was one of the lucky ones. Subscription users not only had problems with AutoCAD 2019, they found their AutoCAD 2018s were broken too, victims of an Autodesk licensing system meltdown. That’s right, the AutoCAD 2019 launch acted as a remote kill-switch for people’s production software.

Perpetual license users were fine, of course. Only subscription customers suffered. There’s a lesson there that should not go unnoticed.

Back to my own experiences, to begin with I couldn’t download AutoCAD 2019 anywhere, despite it being having been announced everywhere some hours earlier. Autodesk Account wasn’t showing 2019, but it was showing this:

The usual workaround method of downloading the free trial wasn’t any better; that was still on 2018. I even tried installing the execrable Autodesk desktop app (temporarily!), but there was no sign of AutoCAD 2019 there either.

I’ve never had any success using Autodesk’s AVA bot for any real questions, but there was a time when it served as a gateway to Akamai-free downloads, so I tried that. Unfortunately, AVA has been “improved” and that once-excellent feature is gone. I did try asking AVA for the download link to AutoCAD 2019, but that didn’t go well.

First attempt:

Second attempt:

I mentioned my difficulties on Twitter and a few hours later the long-suffering but always-professional @AutodeskHelp people offered this:

Despite appearances, this actually turned out to be helpful because by then the product trial download had been fixed and was offering 2019 rather than 2018. I still didn’t see a direct link and against my better judgement tolerated a very temporary installation of Autodesk’s nasty Akamai download manager. About 5 minutes into the download it said it was going to take about 9 hours so I went away and left it. I returned within the hour to find it was finished, so I have no idea how long it actually took. After immediately uninstalling all traces of Akamai and Autodesk desktop app, I was able to start my evaluation.

So how’s the product? Pretty much the same as 2018, except with a better drawing compare tool. Oh, and the icons are better. The first command I ran in the new release reminded me that some things never change. The ancient rectangular pickbox bug popped in to see me, just like an old friend.

I’ve been warmed by the familiar, comforting experience of this and various other early 90s-era bugs and limitations, where the easiest workaround is to use a competitor’s product to do those bits. More on that in a future post.

An hour or so into using the product saw it crash and burn for the first time:

Don’t take my word for it, though; here are some comments from various users, CAD Managers and long-term Autodesk fans, most of whom had a worse time of it than I did. It’s not just AutoCAD; LT and Navisworks are definitely affected and there may be others. Comments here have been reproduced from various sources under fair use; names have been removed to protect the innocent.

I think it is safe to say that Autodesk are having a very bad day. Account and activation issues, subscription access issues, forum login issues, kudos and comments blocked to some users…

I installed the brand new @Navisworks Manage 2019 last night, and this morning I get the “Your trial has expired” !!!

I can safely say that ‘unimpressed’ is my status right now with the licencing idiocy going on. Not only can I not get the 2019 version, but my 2018 version has stopped working too.

Looks like all subscription (not maintenance or legacy) software is affected this way: logging in and out as well as workarounds posted are not working. Now this is a good reason to abandon Autodesk subscription model.

Good news: Autodesk began rollout of 2019 licenses! Bad news: It might break your 2018 licenses.

Hard to imagine this rollout going any worse.
[Autodesk]”Hold my beer….”

2.5 days without AutoCAD available. I just wish Autodesk would have told us so I could have gone on vacation. Instead, I will have to work thru the weekend to make up lost time.

I love Autodesk and their software, but they have just ditched an entire generation of Autodesk ‘rockstars’ and their subscription portal isn’t working. It really doesn’t look good, does it?

my 2018 is hosed on 3 devices

Unfortunately the situation has lasted for nearly 24 hours and no work done. Can we send the bill to Autodesk?

so I thought I’d try and activate LT
LOL

Although some parts of this are supposedly fixed, it’s not over yet. As I type this, people are still reporting problems and Autodesk is still offering apologies:

Even now, AVA is still completely in the dark about the current release of Autodesk’s traditional flagship product.

It’s great to see users helping each other, though. You may find this Autodesk Forum post by Travis Nave useful as an interim workaround. Also, in a marvellous continuation of McNeel’s free service to the AutoCAD (and BricsCAD) LISP community, DOSLib has been made available for AutoCAD 2019 even before many people were even able to get hold of the software it runs on. That’s what I call service!

All in all, this has not the best start to AutoCAD’s brave new world of oneness. How did it go for you?

Autodesk subscription offer – the first cracks appear in the all-rental wall

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Thanks to a comment by Fabien, I recently learned of a new offer from Autodesk to convert perpetual licenses to subscription (rental). It turns out that this is a global offer from 7 February to 20 April 2018.

Such offers come and go from time to time and most are not particularly interesting. This one is. Not because you’ll want to take it up (you probably won’t), but because of what it represents.

Here’s how it appears on Autodesk’s site:

What’s really interesting about this offer is this sentence:

If you are not satisfied, you can switch back to your perpetual license.

With that, we see the first solid acknowledgement from Autodesk of the reason so many existing customers are stubbornly refusing to put themselves in rental chains, despite the cracking of price whips. Customers like their perpetual licenses and are unwilling to give them away. This offer holds out the promise that they can be returned. There’s a lot of fine print that severely restricts the utility of the offer and I can’t see many savvy customers falling for it, but at least an attempt (however weak) is being made to placate perpetual license holders.

The offer is explained in the FAQs and more detail is available in the Terms & Conditions page. Here’s an overview of how it works.

  1. You trade in your perpetual license of AutoCAD, LT, Suites or several other products using this link. These can be out of maintenance and could date back to Release 14 from 20 years ago*.
  2. You sign up for subscription of an Industry Collection for 1 or 3 years. Of course, the subscription cost of an Industry Collection is pretty substantial and way more than the maintenance costs of, say, AutoCAD – even with Autodesk’s promised price hikes. For example, the AEC Collection is USD $2,018 a year under this offer, down from $2,690.
  3. The subscription cost is 25% less than it is without this offer. It’s still pretty expensive, particularly as you can’t use more than two applications in the Collection at once, but it is a bit less than is would be,
  4. You are given the option of backing out of the deal (“switch back” is the Autodesk term) within a specific 30-day window if not satisfied. That window is at the end of the full 3-year period, or after 2 years if you sign up for 1-year increments. You get your perpetual license back. You don’t get your money back.
  5. If you switch back, it’s up to you to make sure you have the media and necessary details to reinstall the old release.
  6. If you switch back, you don’t get to resume maintenance if you had it. If you didn’t already have your product under maintenance, this is fair enough.
  7. If you switch back, your perpetual license is reverted to its original release. Oh, except if you started at 2017 or 2018. In that case, you are reverted to 2016.

That last part is a nasty, petty detail. Somebody at Autodesk actually thought that up, presented it at a meeting and had it accepted as a good idea. That’s the mentality we’re dealing with here. It’s not so much “How can we better serve customers so they want to give us more money?”, it’s more “How can we hurt customers who don’t do what we want?”

If you take up this offer, the idea is to get you using the new software because there’s a bit less finality about the decision. You might be so impressed by it that you forget you’ve discarded your escape plan and signed yourself up for perpetual payment of large amounts. You might also find that you’ve saved all your files in new formats and can’t go back without losing data, particularly if you’ve used the vertical products that really, really don’t like having their drawings saved back to earlier releases, even within the same nominal DWG format. So maybe there’s a bit more finality than first appears, but by the time you’ve got to that stage it will be too late.

Is this an attractive offer? Only if you were going to subscribe to an Industry Collection anyway and have an old dormant license hanging around. In that case, go for it, save 25% of a large amount. Other than that, it’s really not an offer that will have widespread appeal and I suspect most customers will give it a miss.

Autodesk is getting increasingly desperate to get its long-term customers on the rental gravy train, and the cracks have started to appear in the subscription-only facade. This offer’s not great but I suspect the offers are only going to get better as the “Another great quarter!” patter wears thinner and thinner. The offers will have to get much better than this effort to persuade your average perpetual license owner to get on board.

* Pedantic historical point: in multiple places, this promotion associates Release 14 with the year 1998, implying this is the earliest year you could have bought an eligible product. This is incorrect. Release 14 was released in February 1997 and was replaced by AutoCAD 2000 in March 1999.

Autodesk kills ArtCAM, proves subscription is terrible for customers

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This story goes back over 50 years. A British company called Delcam was founded in 1965 and developed many products. These included ArtCAM, an application for producing 3D parts using 2D artwork as a base. It won a Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2003. In 2014, Autodesk acquired Delcam for approximately USD$286 Million and ArtCAM (among others) became an Autodesk product.

As with all Autodesk products, sales of perpetual licenses ceased a couple of years ago. Owners of perpetual licenses were encouraged to ditch them and switch to subscription instead. Financially encouraged, with “discounts” and promises of price rises for uncooperative customers. You’ll be familiar with this part of the story.

Now, Autodesk has killed ArtCAM. The FAQ is here, but as of right now you can’t buy a new ArtCAM subscription. You can renew an existing subscription until 7 July 2018. Support ends on 1 November 2018. Support will be of limited value because bugs are highly unlikely to be fixed, especially if what I hear about the development team being fired last November is true.

Are you an ArtCAM customer wondering what this means for the future? Here’s what happens if you followed Autodesk’s advice and switched to subscription:

  • You stop using the software as soon as your subscription runs out. Immediately. No negotiation will be entered into.

Here’s what happens if you didn’t follow Autodesk’s advice and kept your perpetual license:

  • You get use the software for as long as it still works.

Which of these scenarios would you say is preferable from a customer point of view? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question similar to, “Would you prefer to: a) cut your own head off with a blunt rusty saw; or b) not do that?”

Remember when I said subscription was a trap and you shouldn’t fall for it? Was I wrong?

OK, hands up all those customers who still think Autodesk subscription is a good idea. Anyone?

I’ve added ArtCAM to the Autodesk Graveyard. Anybody who thinks this can’t happen to their product should read that page and ponder how many Autodesk customers thought their product would permanently persist.

Too soon? Autodesk cancels 30% subscription price increase

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Autodesk had announced plans to increase some subscription prices by 30% on 7 November 2017. Resellers have already passed that information on to customers. Here’s the detail of what was going to happen:

Three Important Changes to Subscriptions with Multi-User Access

Autodesk is increasing prices on subscriptions with multi-user access to reflect the value and flexibility that sharing licenses provides our customers. As part of this change, we will stop selling new subscriptions with multi-user access for select products.

Beginning November 7, 2017:

  • Prices for new and renewing subscriptions with multi-user access for most individual products are increasing by ~17-19%.
  • Price for customers to switch from a maintenance plan to an industry collection with multi-user access will increase by ~30%.
  • New subscriptions with multi-user access will no longer be sold for Revit, Inventor Professional, and Navisworks Manage

This was basically an attack on multi-user (network) licensed subscription customers. It’s not obvious what Autodesk has against such customers. On the one hand, Autodesk states that sharing licenses provides customers with value and flexibility. On the other, it states that it’s going to stop selling such useful licenses! You might think that such cooperative customers would be spared the worst of what Autodesk has in mind, but apparently not.

Well, now they will be spared. For now, at least. The 30% increase is being cancelled (confirmation from Autodesk’s Felice S can be found here). I’ve asked for clarification on whether the other measures are also being canned.

Edit: Felice has confirmed that only the 30% element of the announcement has been cancelled and the other measures are going ahead.

It’s unclear why Autodesk would announce such increases at this stage. It’s obvious that Autodesk intends to rack up subscription prices hugely at some point in the future, but it struck me as unwise for Autodesk to show its hand this early. We know the prices are going to shoot up, not only because it’s obvious to anyone capable of joining the dots, but also because Autodesk has already done the rack-up-the-prices thing with multi-million increases for angry but trapped Enterprise Agreement subscription customers.

Unfortunately, most Autodesk customers aren’t aware of what has happened to Enterprise Agreement customers. Even among those who do, there are some trusting souls who would discard their valuable permanent licenses to maybe save a few short-term bucks in the vain hope that Autodesk won’t later impose massive price increases on them, too. I’m not sure what would give anyone reason to believe that, but I have seen people express such a view. What the 30% increase did was to destroy such a charmingly optimistic belief.

That’s why the price rise decision has been reversed. Autodesk might state that this flip-flop shows that it is responsive to customer feedback, but that would be bullshit. Although it was hardly a popular move, there has been relatively little angst about this. The 5%/10%/20% maintenance price increases have attracted far more public criticism. There’s no sign of those increases being reversed, so Autodesk, please don’t come the “we’re listening to our customers” crap. If you listened to your customers, you’d still be selling perpetual licenses.

No, this increase has been reversed because it became obvious (thanks to feedback from resellers, not customers) that it was badly mistimed. It gave the game away too soon.

Too late! We noticed.

It’s probably more accurate to call this a postponement rather than a cancellation. Autodesk will impose ~30% price increases on its subscription users just as soon as it thinks it can get away with it. And 30% will be just the start. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, how much and how often.

We have also learned that multi-user (network) licenses are distinctly unpopular with someone very important at Autodesk. Why? Because they’re useful to customers! What a bizarre anti-customer culture there must be within parts of Autodesk for somebody to even think this way, let alone communicate it externally.

To sum up, here are the lessons from this episode:

  • If you sign up for Autodesk subscription, you’re going to get screwed. Hard.
  • The writing is on the wall for network licenses. If your business finds them invaluable, you’re also going to get screwed.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Repost: Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse

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This is a repost of Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse from 18 April 2010.

I’m posting this to show that I’m not just having a go at Autodesk’s policies because they’re from Autodesk. I’m having a go at those policies because they are reprehensible. Whoever it is that’s being anti-customer, spinning bullshit, or otherwise misbehaving, they can expect to receive a brutally honest critique here.

It’s interesting that in this old post I pointed out that this policy was bad business. (Not quite the expression I used, but the sentiment was there). My agreement with Buzz Kross on this subject goes back seven years, even though I only just discovered that was the case!

  • 2010: Autodesk Subscription – it could be worse
  • 2017: Autodesk subscription – it is worse!

The old post is below the line. Some of the old links are broken, but some work and provide a fascinating insight into how customers – anybody’s customers – view the idea of being charged to fix defects. Enjoy.

I’m still looking for your questions about Autodesk Subscription and upgrade policies and pricing. No matter what you think about that, you have to admit that Autodesk’s current policies are less anti-customer than those inflicted on SolidWorks users.

Disallowing bug fixes for non-subscription customers is reprehensible, no matter what kind of spin is put on it. Not only that, it’s clueless. So you’re annoyed at Autodesk for whatever reason and are looking for alternative software from a company that doesn’t mistreat its customers? You know not to even bother looking at SolidWorks, don’t you?

Edit: more relevant links and customer comments from Devon Sowell and Matt Lombard’s blogs.

Battle of the Bullshit part 5 – Bentley back in the bad books

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Having earlier earned my praise for raising its game in its PR battle with Autodesk, Bentley has unfortunately reverted to BS mode with its latest effort.

In its message “Upgrade your Autodesk Licenses – Top 5 Reasons Why You Have a Choice“, Bentley’s marketers have chosen to step beyond the facts. Bad idea.

Most of that page is just straightforward promotion of Bentley’s self-perceived strong points. No problem with that. But the first full paragraph? Hmm.

Here’s the first example:

Preserve the value of your Autodesk licenses that otherwise would be lost as a result of Autodesk’s decision to no longer offer or support perpetual licenses.

It’s true that Autodesk has decided to no longer offer perpetual licenses. It’s false to state that Autodesk will no longer support them. Perpetual licenses are fully supported with maintenance. Without maintenance, support suffers, but it’s still there. Of course, customers may be rightly fearful about the nasties Autodesk may introduce in future to “persuade” perpetual license owners into subscription subservience, but we’re not there yet and it’s misleading to imply that we are.

What else?

Your perpetual license is a valuable asset. But, if it cannot be upgraded and maintained, it loses all of its value.

It’s true that your perpetual license is a valuable asset. It’s misleading to imply that Autodesk perpetual licenses can’t be maintained. Maintenance is still available, although Autodesk is making it more expensive.

It’s misleading to imply that perpetual licenses can’t be upgraded. It’s true that Autodesk stopped selling upgrades to non-maintenance customers a while ago (having earlier priced them out of the market and then disingenuously citing lack of demand as the excuse for dropping them). But perpetual licenses under maintenance agreements can be upgraded (and are; it’s the biggest part of the deal). They’re obviously also being maintained, so Bentley’s not being fully frank there either.

Finally, a non-upgradable off-maintenance perpetual license does not lose all of its value. It’s still a valuable tool that is capable of doing useful work and generating income for years to come. That’s kind of the point of perpetual licenses; you can stop paying anybody anything and still use the product. In Europe you can even still sell the product.

Elsewhere, Bentley promotes its licensing flexibility. It’s true that Bentley’s continued support for perpetual licenses and availability of rental (term licenses in Bentleyspeak) means it’s 100% more flexible than Autodesk. That doesn’t make it all hunky dory in Bentley license land, though. I don’t see any mention of Bentley’s practice of rounding up your network license use to your detriment, allowing you to silently overshoot your license allowance, then sending you a huge punitive invoice at the end of the billing period.

To be fair, I wouldn’t expect to see that mentioned in marketing materials. But if you have a look at what Bentley customers have had to say about it, particularly from those people who have been over-billed because Bentley has counted license use unfairly, you’ll see that it doesn’t go down at all well with customers. So bear that in mind if you’re thinking of taking up Bentley on this or any other offer.

The rest of the marketing blurb seems fair enough, even if some of the clichéd stock photos are a bit groan-inducing. However, its effectiveness is severely curtailed by its failure to provide details of exactly what is being offered and under what conditions. As I noted with a previous Bentley attempt, curious customers are expected to fill in an online form to obtain information, and that’s a barrier.

It seems I need to repeat something I wrote in an earlier post:

Raise your game, people; we’re not all stupid out here. If you can’t support your argument with the truth, then your argument isn’t a good one and you need to rethink it.

I’m used to Autodesk doing dumb things because it has forgotten to learn from its own history, including pretty recent history in some cases. This episode seems to indicate that Bentley has the same problem.

Bentley, here’s some free advice. You don’t need to exaggerate in order to make Autodesk’s treatment of customers look bad. Autodesk is doing a magnificent job of that without any help. The facts are enough. Also, if you have a great offer, just tell us what it is. OK?

AutoCAD 2018.1 released, but only for some

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Autodesk has released the AutoCAD (and LT) 2018.1 Update, not to be confused with the earlier ill-fated 2018.0.1 Update. It’s only available for currently-paying subscription and maintenance customers. The “non critical” bug fixes in this Update (by Autodesk’s definition) are being withheld from Autodesk’s other customers.

Those of you who have allowed your maintenance to expire due to Autodesk’s development inaction and unjustified price increases can consider yourselves duly punished for failing to fall into line.

If you have the execrable Autodesk desktop app installed (not recommended) and it works as expected, this update will present itself to you. Otherwise, get it from your Autodesk Account page. Go to Management > AutoCAD > 2018 Downloads > Updates & Add-ons and then pick the appropriate AutoCAD 2018.1 Update download.

It has yet to be seen whether this update will break things, so if you’re feeling nervous you might want to hold off for a while and let others find out for you. (Edit: it broke one person’s AutoCAD, see comment from R.K. below).

Weighing in at well over 400 MB, the AutoCAD 2018.1 Update download is about twice the size of a complete BricsCAD download, even before expansion. So it must contain a pretty impressive amount of stuff, right? Or is it all bloat? Well, it includes 2018.0.1 and 2018.0.2 and adds this:

  • Xref Layers Override – Improvements to Xref Layers make it easier to identify overrides and restore them to their default values.
  • Views and Viewports – A new Named Views panel is added to the View tab to make it easy to create and restore named views from the ribbon, and to create scaled views and viewports for your layouts. The new layout viewports are automatically assigned a standard scale that can easily be changed from a new scale grip on the viewport. Viewport grips have been enhanced.
  • High Resolution Monitor Support – Supports additional dialog boxes. Palettes and icons are correctly adjusted to the Windows setting for the display scale.
  • 3D Graphics Performance – Work on performance continues to optimize the speed of 3D display for the Wireframe, Realistic, and Shaded visual styles.

The user interface has been touched up to support the above changes. The Preview Guide has been prepared to the usual excellent standard.

That’s all useful stuff, and most welcome. Work has gone into providing some genuinely useful adjustments. But there’s not a lot of it. Autodesk is still just tinkering at the edges.

Overall, AutoCAD 2018.1 is a pretty minor mid-term update, falling a long way short of, say, Release 13c4. That update was shipped on CD to all customers. Free. No maintenance or subscription required.

Bricsys does much more significant and worthwhile mid-term updates than this, and doesn’t charge for them. Perpetual license owners, even those not on maintenance, get them for nothing. Along with the bug fixes. Which are properly documented.

Autodesk used to do all that too, but its customer service has since regressed to the point that the standards of the Release 13 days are something to yearn for. Long-term Autodesk customers will know just how damning that state of affairs is. Autodesk lags a long way behind not only the competition, but also its former self.

Autodesk CEO and all-rental architect Andrew Anagnost has asked Autodesk customers to give him a year to prove that his business model will provide them with better value. It’s not clear when that year was supposed to start, but the all-subscription start date of 1 August 2016 seems reasonable. However you reckon it, a big slab of that year is gone and there’s very little to show for it.

Time to get your finger out, Andrew.

I didn’t expect to see any comment about the policy of denying bug fixes to some customers from any Autodesk high-ups, but I was mistaken.

Here’s a quote on just this subject from Autodesk Senior Vice President1, Buzz Kross:

It’s just bad business. Why would you not want to take care of your customers? I would never do that. Come on, we all make mistakes. All software has bugs and as a developer, I have an obligation to provide fixes to all my paying customers, whether they are on subscription or not. Customers on subscription have the advantage of getting access to new stuff. That’s fine. But denying them access to bug fixes is just not right.

Buzz Kross, Senior Vice President, Autodesk1
9 April 2010


Photo: Autodesk

It’s not often I so completely agree with an Autodesk executive1, but I can find no fault in his logic. Thank you, Buzz.

1. Although Buzz is still listed as a SVP in some Autodesk online materials, he’s no longer with the company.

Autodesk confirms its own unconscionable conduct

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It took several attempts over a period of months and was like pulling teeth, but Autodesk has now confirmed that it is deliberately withholding bug fixes from some of its customers.

Autodesk has taken customers’ money and in return has provided defective software (OK, that happens). It has fixed some of those defects (that happens too, sometimes). But it’s limiting distribution of those fixes to those prepared to pay Autodesk further (that has never happened before).

Just let that sink in. Autodesk broke stuff you paid for, could easily fix it, but won’t do so unless you pay more. If you thought ransomware only came from Russia, think again.

Here’s how the scam works.

Let’s say customer Fred paid thousands of dollars for his perpetual license of AutoBLOB and paid thousands more for upgrades and maintenance over several decades. Due to Autodesk no longer making significant improvements to AutoBLOB, he finally gave up hope and decided to drop off maintenance. Understandable, particularly as Autodesk has announced maintenance prices are getting jacked up.

Never mind. Thanks to his perpetual license, Fred can keep right on using AutoBLOB! Aren’t perpetual licenses just the best thing?

Let’s say Fred made the decision after discovering AutoBLOB 2017 was slower than, and really not significantly better than, AutoBLOB 2016, 2015 or even 2010. Fred’s maintenance period carried him through to beyond the release of AutoBLOB 2018, which he intended using for a few years until he transitioned to an alternative product. (Or until Autodesk Becomes Great Again, but Fred doesn’t consider that likely).

Meantime, Fred discovers that there’s a new bug in AutoBLOB 2018 that makes it useless for his needs. It’s not a crash, drawing corruption or security issue, but it is something that makes it difficult of impossible for him to produce the required output. Because he installed AutoBLOB 2018 before his maintenance expired, Autodesk won’t allow him to use 2017 or any earlier version.

Meanwhile, Autodesk has, miracles of miracles, developed a fix for that nasty bug. All Fred has to do is download and install the hotfix or Service Pack, right? Wrong. Because Autodesk has wrapped up the bug fix with AutoBLOB 2018.1, a mid-term update that includes not only bug fixes but also a few new minor feature improvements. Unlike the competition, Autodesk restricts such updates to continuously paying customers. AutoBLOB 2018.1 is therefore only available to subscription and maintenance customers. Fred’s bug has been “deemed non-critical” by Autodesk and therefore the fix won’t be distributed to him.

Fred is screwed by a combination of Autodesk’s worst aspects: chronic failure to improve the product, price-gouging business practices, incompetence in development and testing, and unreasonably restrictive licensing terms. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s then screwed again by one final, nasty, vindictive, petty piece of bastardry by a company desperate to strong-arm its reluctant customers into subscription slavery.

This is not OK.

This is no way to treat customers. It’s unethical. It’s unconscionable. It’s immoral. It’s disgusting. It’s evil.

In the EU at least, it could well be illegal. I certainly hope so; Autodesk being fined a few hundred million Euros might discourage other companies from following suit.

Although it’s tempting to think of Autodesk as a single edifice, it’s important to remember that it’s made up of many individuals. Many of them are great people who would never dream of stooping this low and who are probably quietly embarrassed to be associated with a company that does so. Those people have my sympathy and should stop reading now.

But if you’re that person at Autodesk who thought up this idea? Or one of those who thought it would be OK to do this? Or just sat silently during the meetings where this was discussed and didn’t pipe up, “This is just WRONG”? I have a message for you.

You’re an asshole.