Here is AutoCAD 2016; the last perpetual license you will ever get!

Introducing AutoCAD 2016! The latest! The greatest! The last perpetual license of AutoCAD you or anyone else will ever purchase! If there were ever a time to upgrade your AutoCAD license it is now! So what's new? Well there really isn't any one new thing but instead there are a lot of updates to many existing commands. One thing that isn't new is the DWG file type. Yep AutoCAD 2016 will still run on AutoCAD 2013 DWG. Autodesk has also removed the ability to password protect DWG files. It can open and use password protected files but it will not be able to create them. This update brings performance improvements, new ways to create dimensions, a few UI tweaks, a new osnap, additional point cloud tools, updated referencing options, a brand new 3D rendering engine, and a handy system variable monitoring tool.

Autodesk Upgrade Pricing Ends January 31

Autodesk officially ends its upgrade pricing plans this month. After January 31, 2015, Autodesk customers will no longer be able to upgrade their licenses of Autodesk products to a newer version. This has been the practice of many Autodesk clients for decades. Company’s would purchase a license from Autodesk and sit on it for several years. When the need arose they would update to the latest version at a discounted price. This price was substantially cheaper than purchasing a brand new license and they only had to spend the money when they absolutely had to. The only other reason spend money was when a company needed an additional license.

Autodesk software isn’t cheap. A single license for one of their products could cost anywhere from $1000 to $7000 easy (US Dollars).  A single perpetual license of AutoCAD could cost around $4000 (estimated pricing) with the upgrade at half the price, depending on when you update and how old your version was. These upgrade prices changed throughout the years with the price slowly increasing as time went on.

Upgrading to AutoCAD 2013? Is Your Hardware Good Enough?

If you are upgrading to AutoCAD 2013, I hope you take the time to see if your current hardware can handle Autodesk's latest version of their flagship software.  If you aren't sure, then you are in luck.  I wrote a four part series for CADspeed on this very topic.

Here are links to the four articles:

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 1: Can Your Current Workstation Handle The Upgrade?

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 2: Current and Future Needs

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 3: Review Recommended Hardware

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 4: Processor, Video Card, RAM and Hard Drive

I hope this helps.  I know I learned quite a bit researching the topic.

2012 the Year of the Software Update

I am dubbing 2012 “The Year of the Software Update” because of all of the major updates that are scheduled to take place.  Autodesk has a yearly update schedule and if they follow what they’ve done since 2003 the next release of AutoCAD® should have a new DWG file type.  Adobe has announced that they too are on a yearly release cycle for their Creative Suite® with CS 6 due this year.  Solidworks yearly cycle will give us a new version this year.  Draftsight seems to be on a yearly release that should come out this April. Now Microsoft has announced that Office 15 will come out this year.  On top of that Microsoft Windows 8 is also scheduled to release this year.

Upgrade to an Autodesk Design Suite, for FREE*

Autodesk is making it possible for current Subscription customers to upgrade to one of their new Design Suites for free, sort of.  The criteria for upgrade eligibility is simple enough, you have to request an upgrade for current, one year active subscriptions.  Simply go to their request form web page and fill out the form.  The upgrade is free, but limited to the Standard Suites.  There are three versions of each suite; Standard, Premium, and Ultimate.  The standard suites don't pack the same punch as the ultimate suites of course, but you will be getting more software.

*The upgrade is free, meaning that you will not have to pay the additional cost for the new license, but you will have to pay for the new subscription fee when your contract is up.  That being said, it is not a completely free upgrade, but it will only cost you if you want to keep the subscription.  I suggest that you talk with your Autodesk reseller to get an idea of what the new subscription fee will be before you upgrade.  I suggest that you consider it.  Yes your software coast will go up, but it might not be as much of an increase as you think.  Plus you will be getting more tools at your disposal.