|
Autodesk Inventor Professional vs Autodesk Inventor Series Q&AThe purpose of this document is to clarify some of the speculation regarding Autodesk Inventor Professional and Autodesk Inventor Series. Why was Autodesk Inventor Professional created? Autodesk Inventor Professional was created for mechanical engineers and designers who need additional tools to complete the design of industrial machinery, electro-mechanical equipment, and industrial equipment. Autodesk Inventor Professional is a companion product to Autodesk Inventor Series that will contain additional applications, such as piping, that extend the benefits of Autodesk Inventor Series into new areas. These applications target functionality that is not used on a daily basis by all the members of the design team, but rather by a subset. While the number of users will not be as high as Autodesk Inventor Series, the return on investment for functions, such as tube and pipe and cable and harness, is very high. The current methods for designing these components are incredibly manual, time consuming and error prone. Who are the targeted users of Autodesk Inventor Professional? Autodesk Inventor Professional is targeted at the current Inventor installed base and in particular at those Industrial Machinery manufacturers who have reasonably complete 3D models that would enable the design of piping and harnessing with Inventor. Typically, these customers will be looking to maximize their use of Inventor to automate specialized design disciplines. They have often tried creating wiring or piping within Inventor, but their designs are too large and complex to make this approach a practical solution. They need the efficiencies offered by the specialized applications to replace their current manual methods. An additional target for Autodesk Inventor Professional is the legacy CAD user looking for a new CAD system that intelligently handles these types of assemblies. Why not rely on 3rd parties to create this type of functionality? Third party add-on applications are certainly a viable way to extend Inventor. However, in the areas of piping and cabling especially, we believe customers will see greater benefit at a lower price if the applications are provided directly by Autodesk. Since piping and cabling create a lot of complex geometry, the integration can be greatly enhanced by moving the development internal. A tighter integration with Inventor is possible as well as better interoperability between applications. Traditionally, 3rd party add-ons in this space cost more than Autodesk is planning to charge for these products. For example, the Linius stand alone cabling application had a list price of about $5K. How are the Autodesk Inventor Professional applications packaged? Autodesk Inventor Professional is packaged as a single product that includes Autodesk Inventor Series and the specialized applications. For one price, the user gets both Autodesk Inventor Series and all the applications. They work with a single supplier and have a single point of contact for support. They install a single product. They do not have to worry about integration issues or service pack incompatibilities. By grouping all this functionality together for a list price (in the Americas) of $7950US + $1495 (subscription), Autodesk Inventor Professional will offer more at a lower price than has been historically available from our competitors and their partners. How do Autodesk Inventor Series users get access to Autodesk Inventor Professional functionality? Current Autodesk Inventor Series users on subscription will continue to receive updates to Autodesk Inventor Series, however to receive the benefits of Autodesk Inventor Professional they will need to cross-grade their current licenses to Autodesk Inventor Professional or buy a new Autodesk Inventor Professional license. When cross-grading, not all Autodesk Inventor Series licenses need to be converted to Autodesk Inventor Professional. So, for example, in a customer site with 10 licenses of Autodesk Inventor Series, perhaps 1 or 2 will move to Autodesk Inventor Professional. The Autodesk Inventor Professional functionality can be shared across users with a floating license. (Note: Autodesk Inventor Professional 8 will not float properly in a mixed Autodesk Inventor Series/Autodesk Inventor Professional environment. This will be remedied and until that time please work with Autodesk for a workaround.) Why do Autodesk Inventor Series users have to pay extra for Autodesk Inventor Professional? The functionality in Autodesk Inventor Professional required an investment from Autodesk, both to acquire companies and to develop the new integrated functionality. Rather than have every owner of Autodesk Inventor Series pay for Autodesk Inventor Professional functionality either through increased subscription or seat price, Autodesk decided that only those who needed and wanted to use this functionality should pay for it. Ordinarily, this functionality would be sold in an a la carte fashion that results in a higher cost of ownership. Instead, Autodesk's approach is to bundle all these specialized applications together at a single low price. Additionally, since every Inventor user in a company does not need an Autodesk Inventor Professional license, costs can be controlled by optimizing license count of both Autodesk Inventor Professional and Autodesk Inventor Series. What is Autodesk's Commitment to Inventor? Autodesk Inventor Series remains fundamental to Autodesk's business and is a critical component in all Manufacturing Division business strategies. By far, the majority of our investment (over 84%) is being made in this area and will continue to be made in this area. We are focused on addressing customer concerns and moving our current customers from piloting Inventor to using it in production. Moreover, additional resources were added to support Autodesk Inventor Professional and Vault and not taken from Autodesk Inventor Series. What benefits did Autodesk Inventor Series 7 provide users? Autodesk Inventor Series is more than just Inventor, it is a suite of mechanical tools offering both AutoCAD based products and Inventor. Autodesk Inventor Series 7 was a release focused on solving customer and quality issues and providing compatibility with the new release of AutoCAD 2004. Autodesk Inventor Series customers who also depend on AutoCAD need the ability to remain current with co-workers using the latest release of AutoCAD. Those using AutoCAD Mechanical benefited from a large number of enhancements as well. Customers using Inventor only may not necessarily see benefits from the AutoCAD based upgrade, but will benefit from the quality and performance improvements available in Inventor. The intent was also to deliver the Vault in the same time frame, however this was delayed. The Vault is now available to Autodesk Inventor Series 7 customers on subscription. Why is the Autodesk Inventor Professional messaging so similar to the Autodesk Inventor Series messaging? It is simple... because Autodesk Inventor Professional contains Autodesk Inventor Series. They share the same fundamental benefits. The critical difference is that with Autodesk Inventor Professional we extend these benefits to more members of the design team - those doing piping and cabling and other specialized functions in the future. What is currently available and what are the future plans for Inventor Professional? The current release of Autodesk Inventor Professional is version 7 and it has been shipping since the end of June. This is the first release of the product; however the version numbers are tied to the Inventor version. Autodesk Inventor Professional 8 includes the Tube and Pipe application and an IDF translator. We wish we could disclose details of our exact future plans for Autodesk Inventor Professional but are prevented from doing so due to accounting rules. However, we can say that our future plans include integrating technologies from the recent acquisitions of Linius Technologies (wire harnessing) and Via WD (diagramming), as well as enhancing the current offering. List all pages on Inventor Professional 8 or search Google for Inventor Professional 8
|
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
Archived Products
