So we have a number of seats of Inventor installed. Of all of those seats maybe 1 users AutoCAD. The rest of us never touch the program. If I need to view an AutoCAD drawing I'll just use TrueView.

So now I just hired a new electrical engineer. I need a license of AutoCAD for him. Problem is I cannot use the same license that is installed on the IV machine even though

a) I don't use it on those machines
b) it is not even installed

So now I'll have to plunk down $2-3k for a license of a program that I already own several of that I do not use. There is something very wrong with this.

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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This is also compounded by the "suite" approach to all these products now. I recently was having a couple of Mechanical seats changed to be Electrical seats and found that it costs more to change the Suited Mechanical seat that contain more product than it would to change them if they were still standard Mechanical seats. This made no sense to me. I was asking to take a suited product that included all kinds of software to a single piece of software and it was going to cost more than a single piece to single piece! So I fussed on the subscription site and they did roll my Mechanicals back to singles so I could do it cheaper but why would I have to go though that!

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Todd Hudgins

I made this argument when I was out in Portland when the Suites were announced. I told everyone who would listen that I need to be able to trade out Mech for Elec and vice versa. Maybe even for a small fee but not for full price.

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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I thought that could be done with network licenses. Is that not possible?

Single Seat Licencing...hypothetically speaking one could load Autodesk Product Suite on two machines (i.e. Laptop and Workstation) as long as both are not theoretically used at the same time then its ok...right?

...so if you (Sean) don't use the product suite as much...what's the chance you infringing the rights of the lease contract...cause we all know we don't actually "own it"...not likely right...so game on!

...so in a more practical sense if your 1st shift stops and your second shift starts...who's to say you need 2 licences?

...the Network License method allows for a company to add a single seat to float for the occasional user appose to buying a seat for every person who "might" use one...

...so in both single and network license models you can load the application on as many PC's as you'd like...just don't use them at the same time...that's how I've always understood it.

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Steve Robbins
Inventor Design Solutions & Innovations
"I believe in being an innovator " - Walt Disney
@_iDSi

Be very careful there because that is definely not the case. I received a non compliance letter recently from ADSK about one of my serial numbers being activated two many time. This turns out to be the fault of some electrical engineers reimaging hard drives with older software on them (before I let ADSk combine each product into the same ss). Hard drives had gone bad, were replaced, reimaged, and the ADSK software was reauthorized upon launch. So you are allow ONLY two authorizations per each "owned/leased" seat you have for stand alone licenses.

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Todd Hudgins

Your right Todd...but with valid proof/reason its no big deal...its much like MSFT not validating my XP pro after the 18+ times I've either had to reload OS on new motherboard or new PC or replace hard drive...not an issue more hassle IMHO

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Steve Robbins
Inventor Design Solutions & Innovations
"I believe in being an innovator " - Walt Disney
@_iDSi

An extra issue for me was also the version involved. We have been very busy for a few years so have not done a mass upgrade since 2009. The two electrical seats were still on 2008. I recent began the process of build new machines with 2012 and ADSK only allows you to go 2 releases behind yourself. So once I starting authorizing 2012 seats and then they re-authorized those 2008 seats the flags went up.

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Todd Hudgins

We have rolled out DraftSight for all our engineers. Saves them holding up an Inventor Suite license. It is free, has the same commands as AutoCAD and uses native dwg files.

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken

You can also transfer your standalone licence online..

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken

I am considering this as well. My question is how similar to AutoCAD is it? I do not want to have to have a huge learning curve for the engineers.

_________________
Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
Free 30 day trial of iPropWiz v5
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I am surprised how similar it is, legally speaking. All your options menu has pretty much the same headings only rearranged in a tree structure so pretty easy to navigate. The GUI is toolbar style with model and paper space and all your standard ACAD keyboard commands work. Just about all commands have the same sub-menu options as well. For basic 2D stuff you could pick it up and use it straight away.

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken

I downloaded it last night. You are right. Wow, it's almost a clone. For what we use it for this will probably work just fine.

_________________
Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
Free 30 day trial of iPropWiz v5
Follow @seandotson & @mcadforums & @rndautomationon Twitter

Another plus for network licensing, when you have enough users is they do other things with their time and don't use CAD all day. The number we found at Applied was that the engineers only spent about 20% of their time running CAD. That meant that 20 licenses could cover 100 engineers. We had a bit lower ratio so we wouldn't risk running out.

There is also AutoCAD LT. Unless the Electrical guy really needs all the bells and whistles of a full seat of AutoCAD, why bother? Also, Autodesk has offered special upgrades of the LT licenses in the past. One has to believe that they might do it again in the future.