By chance I read an article today in an engineering design journal (long story….) summarising changes to the licensing of Autodesk software.  I’ve been to their Web site and there’s nothing highlighted that the casual visitor would notice, so I’m going to quote verbatim from what I read today in Professional Engineering.  They quote from Stephen Hooper, their European manufacturing business development manager, who explains a complex mix of bundling options creating an unknown number of combinations of Autodesk modules. His summary is that -

“The suites will all come in three grades: standard, premium and ultimate. For engineers in manufacturing, the standard Product Design Suite starts off with AutoCAD Mechanical and adds SketchBook Designer and Mudbox for quick product definition, Showcase for visualisation and Vault product data management.

The premium edition then adds Autodesk Inventor and 3dsMax for full digital prototyping, and the ultimate edition further adds Inventor Professional and Alias.

A Factory Design Suite for designing production areas and workflows incorporates some of Autodesk’s architectural design software alongside the NavisWorks simulation package.” 

Hooper said that a purchaser of the premium Product Design Suite would save 56% of the list price of the individual elements by buying the suite.

Rather than risk misleading anyone, or getting hit for copyright, I would rather point you to the news item here. 

The Software Asset Management and compliance challenges of software suites

This must be a welcome offer for heavy users of Autodesk software, but I suspect it’s adding complexity to the challenges of optimization and compliance on Autodesk software. What happens if not everyone in the organization needs the full combinations that are provided in the suite?  Do you have to monitor which users are licensed on the full bundle and which are licensed on a subset?  In what cases does it pay off to purchase the bundle even if the target user is not going to use all the components?  I’m glad I’m not managing a large estate of Autodesk software!

Vector has provided multi-module discounting across our product range for years - it makes sense. Fortunately the scheme allows for varying quantities of each module, applying a simple tiered discount based on the number of modules required. No two customers’ needs are identical.

About the Author

Colin Bartram's background in IT Asset and Service Management runs uninterrupted from the 1980s, and includes specifying, writing, selling and supporting software solutions. Today he contributes to product strategy and marketing for the Vector Networks group of companies. His spare time is focussed on his horse and the related demands of maintaining 5 acres of ancient pasture in Derbyshire in the UK.