The problem was it was not always such an easy task for MDT users to make the switch. They decided to leave the old-boys club alone and focus on their existing customer base and the other mid-range modelers. This correlated with Inventor’s new abilities to import both 2D AutoCAD drawings and 3D MDT models. They first started including AutoCAD with your Inventor purchase. Inventor Rebirth and the Struggles for MDT Usersįast forward two years (say 2001ish) and Autodesk did an 180 when they realized they missed the boat. It didn’t help that the quantity of new features in MDT quickly started to dwindle. The way Autodesk marketed and promoted Inventor and almost instantly ignored MDT, made customers start to question the life of MDT.
They didn’t want to murky the waters.Īs much as the Autodesk customer base liked MDT they immediately felt betrayed and many pissed off that Autodesk was introducing a new product. Since Autodesk was looking elsewhere, they did not think it was important to include AutoCAD with Inventor. Inventor 1.0 could not import 2D DWG nor could it import MDT 3D models. Although Autodesk worked hard by ramping up the releases quickly there was no way Inventor could compete with ProE, UG, and the high-end modelers. The message from Autodesk to its resellers was to continue pushing MDT on the existing customer base and aim high by selling Inventor to the ProE, Catia, UG, and Ideas users.Īs you can imagine things fell apart quickly. Autodesk Inventor, as a release 1, lacked features to really complete. Autodesk sold hard on Inventor’s adaptivity, its large modeling database, its ease-of-use, and modern “clean” user interface. This was at a pre-Creo time, where ProEngineer was still king of the market. Autodesk so badly read the market and stumbled out of the gate with Inventor.Īutodesk touted Inventor as the “ ProE Killer“. What was a bit scary at the time for resellers, now seems a bit humorous.
#Autocad fusion 360 plus
In addition, MDT was actually cumbersome to use plus it lacked some of the advanced bells-and-whistles as its competitors. As it was based on AutoCAD it seemed adequated and difficult to use, especially compared to the likes of SOLIDWORKS and SolidEdge. They knew they needed something built from the ground up, focussed solely on mechanical 3D modeling for manufacturing.Īs easy as it was to sell MDT to existing Autodesk customers, it was almost impossible to sell to non-Autodesk customers. This product, codenamed Rubicon, would go on to become the Autodesk Inventor we all know and love.Īutodesk recognized they were seriously handcuffed developing on top of AutoCAD. Autodesk released Inventor (gasp)! A New Beginning… Autodesk InventorĪutodesk passed on the opportunity to purchase SOLIDWORKS as they were secretly working on their own “modern” system. The next versions of Mechanical Desktop, based on AutoCAD R, brought along significant new features, functionality, and workflows.īut then something happened….(dramatic pause)…. well, at least for existing Autodesk customers. I might even argue that there is no system today that provides the same level of flexibility to detail, as well as MDT could.Īdd it all up and selling MDT was as much of a slam dunk as you could have…. Since it was based on AutoCAD, MDT’s detailing and annotation tools were easily the best in the market. We would show existing customers that they could continue to use their AutoCAD templates, borders, title blocks, layer schemes, block (symbol) libraries, and the icing-on-the-cake easily move their 2D drawings to 3D parametric models. In addition to costing less, as it was based on AutoCAD.
#Autocad fusion 360 upgrade
It was an Autodesk product and existing AutoCAD customers could upgrade to MDT for a significantly less amount than buying SOLIDWORKS or SolidEdge. When I entered the workforce in 1998 it was for an Autodesk reseller.
MDT was based on AutoCAD, acquired technology, and internally developed features. For most organizations, you could be very proficient spending just between $5000 and $10,000.Īs already mentioned, the main 3D mechanical modeling system for Autodesk at the time was Mechanical Desktop (MDT). No longer did you have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do 3D modeling. No longer were the old-boys club of ProEngineer, Catia, and Unigraphics ruling the roost. Autodesk’s Mechanical Desktop, the new-to-the-market SOLIDWORKS, SolidEdge, and others were really changing the playing field. It is 1999 and the so-called midrange modelers are now the dominate players in the 3D modeling market. Is Inventor’s death a real possibility? How could Autodesk kill a product that is a market leader, is used by thousands of people, and has a strong (loyal) community of users? They definitely can and have done so before.
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