

Presumably, the Views you’re Sharing are no longer of Designs. In AutoCAD 2019 it has been revised again and renamed to Shared Views. This was slightly improved in AutoCAD 2018. You may recall me describing (and praising) the AutoCAD 2017 feature, Share Design View. They’re simple online viewing tools with some editing and markup functionality. Similarly, as a maintenance customer you’re not getting AutoCAD Web and Mobile. However you look at it, it’s subscription-only and therefore need not concern us further. Expect no significant future enhancements and you may avoid disappointment. This initiative has been unkindly referred to as ‘shovelware’, and it’s highly likely that throwing in all of these verticals for ‘free’ means that we’ve seen the end of their meaningful lives. You’re getting the availability of a bunch of seven different AutoCAD variants and one add-on (Raster Design), each of which needs to be downloaded, installed and run individually. Despite the name and the There Can Be Only One hype, if you’re a renter you’re not getting one AutoCAD that has the extra bits available. What you’re not gettingĪs a maintenance customer, you’re being denied the big item that would make the answer to that question a definite ‘yes’ – Specialized Toolsets. In short, is AutoCAD 2019 enough of an advance over its predecessor to make it worth the maintenance money you paid in advance for it? This post seeks to answer that question.

Autodesk is jacking up maintenance prices in leaps and bounds is the maintenance being performed at a rate that matches the amount being charged? It’s no secret that the value for your maintenance dollar has been poor for years. You’re not about to fall for the subscription (rental) trick they can prise your perpetual license from your cold, dead fingers. You paid for upgrades when you could and switched to maintenance (then called Subscription) when that became the only cost-effective option for keeping current. So you’re a long-term customer who has used AutoCAD since it ran on an abacus.
