Talk:Autodesk

Untitled

The opening line of this article is blatant press release style double speak. "global design innovation software and services company" ??? I am removing "design innovation"12.49.153.2 (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I find the last sentence "Autodesk is now using llamas.net to manage its in-house intranet" useless. That's a detail. I would like to delete it, except if several people can explain me it's interest. Jean-Philippe B (talk) 16:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

---

I disagree with Jpgordon's removal of my comments, which he removed entirely and simply described as "removed Garbargio." My comments of the PR drivel (though I've noticed some of it has since been removed) and my comment on the "Last Days of Autodesk" documents stands. I've got just as much right t comment on this entry as you. You've got no right to strip stuff out just because you don't like it, and my comment stands: This is one of the sloppiest, most unprofessional wiki entries I've ever seen. Jpgordon, reinstate my original comments and you have no right to remove my comments, particularly since they raised valid points and didn't break Wiki rules. [05:10, 13 Dec 2006 UTC)

I want to edit this extensively, but I'm not sure most of the information belongs here at all (rather, it belongs in the AutoCAD article.) And some of the information here is incorrect anyway. The characterization of the original AutoCAD as "mediocre" is at the very least POV. The versions where DOS and Unix support were dropped are wrong. I don't know when Autodesk started "working closely with Microsoft", but it was later than R15. The expression "basement-CAD" is rather peculiar.

But as I said, this information really should be in the AutoCAD article. If it isn't going to go there, it needs a ton of editing here. Jpgordon 04:09, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not an Autodesk customer, employee, or stockholder, nor have I ever been any of those types (although I was a HOOPS customer and Autodesk bought Ithaca Software). Anyway, I was under the impression that a key to Autodesk's early success had to do with their distribution model, where the product was sold by Autocad dealers and it was easy for people to become Autocad dealers. I don't mean to make that sound like some kind of pyramid scheme; I just thought it was interesting. Thomas144

• It is interesting. It would be worth adding that to the article, though I don't know that it was easy to become an AutoCAD dealer; I seem to recall that the dealers were expected to provide a certain level of support for their customers, so some training or AutoCAD experience was required. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Darn right. It was something like the Compaq model of marketing, in which the company gave tech support to the dealers, who were supposed to do the customer support. I think the two companies adopted the model pretty much independently; Compaq was no famous industry giant in 1982. For Autodesk it was, clearly, a way of avoiding huge support costs, paying the dealers for that job by giving them larg eprofit margins and a natural restriction of competition by the requirement of technical dedication. (Haven't lost my sensitivity to anti-trust questions even yet; hence the heavy-handed memphasis how it was not an improper restraint of trade.) Dandrake 22:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

History section

The history section is in desperate need of work. Parts of it are utter garbage. For example, the company's ultimate goal was to achieve a major software brand (AutoCAD) running upon IBM's recently born PC platform. "Ultimate"? When? Says who? A lot of the history can be gleaned from The Autodesk Files[1]. I'd do it myself but I'm too intimately involved, having worked there for a decade. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've trimmed the history section a bit to get rid of some of the heavily POV stuff. However I've just taken out what was clearly very negative spin on their history, I've not added in more accurate and sourcable information yet. Someone really needs to go through using the reference above to put in the actual historical information. --Tnomad 10:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Josh. Good to hear from you. So what's wrong with editing when you have actual knowledge? It's not exactly a vanity article, after all. Of course, I know two reasons:

• If you contribute something you know, it's Original Research; or, worse yet, Anecdotal. Must stick to stuff that somebody else has published, so we know it's true.
• The real problem: hard not to get involved and feel proprietary about the article. That's why I don't contribute to Wikipedia any more, beyond random little corrections like the one to this article -- and I'm not even gonna provide the easy Autodesk File refs to back up my point. Hoping I'll resist revisiting this and the AutoCAD article too soon. Dandrake 22:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, that's why I don't work much on this article (or, similarly, the eBay article.) Hi Dan! --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Funny how even a mention of the Autodesk File gets removed.

I still have my paper version from my time at Autodesk in an attic somewhere :) Ambitus (talk) 12:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

If you want to use it to write and source some content for the article, fine, but what you added was just a mention of the file and an inline external link. The purpose of Wikipedia is to host articles, not links. - MrOllie (talk) 19:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

MrOllie I don’t understand your comment. I wrote a brief description of the Autodesk File, and why it’s an important document not just in the history of Autodesk but of the industry. Your response seems to suggest that I should repeat more content from the Autodesk File, rather than a link to it. Wikipedia articles have lots of links - are you going to systematically remove all links that you decide don’t have sufficient content associated with them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ambitus (talk • contribs) 07:27, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

1) We don't embed external links in the body of articles, see WP:EL. 2) We don't link "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" - so while it is appropriate to use the Autodesk file as a source to improve the content of this article, it is not appropriate to just point our readers at somebody else's site and have done with it rather than do the writing here. - MrOllie (talk) 12:58, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:AutoCAD 2006 drawing.png

Image:AutoCAD 2006 drawing.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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First sentence in "Portfolio" section is currently incomprehensible

The following sentence is currently incomprehensible:

"The Platform Solutions and Emerging Business division develops and manages Autodesk's flagship product, AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Autodesk's Geospatial solutions, Plant solutions, Extended Design offerings such as Design Review, Content and Search solutions, Autodesk Labs, and worldwide engineering."

Items in this list need to be separated with semicolons, with commas used for the parenthetical information given for the individual items. I would do this if I knew which were main items and what was parenthetical, but it's impossible to tell unless you are acquainted with the products mentioned, and I am not. — Paul G 07:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

products

why is this article just talking about autocad? what about autodesk's other products like 3dsmax and how they bought Alias Systems Corporation, and now own maya —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.27.232.197 (talk) 18:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Autodesk logo.png

Image:Autodesk logo.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

Autodesk has made many acquisitions, perhaps we should put them in a unified bulleted list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wariner (talk • contribs) 07:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

BetacommandBot (talk) 19:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Canadian

I am watching Canada AM and they are promoting the hell out of Autodesk and saying that it's a Canadian company... What gives?... --Diefromevileye (talk) 13:42, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Acquisition of Tinkercad

Hi, I haven't an idea how to edit Wiki articles, but Autodesk just acquired Tinkercad. (see: http://blog.tinkercad.com/2013/05/18/autodesk_tinkercad/ ) Perhaps this would be of use to put into the article? 121.217.185.101 (talk) 07:59, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

It was added. Geraldshields11 (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Discontinued products

How was Lightscape the only radiosity rendering package available in 1991? I can think of at least Radiance, which had been in development since 1985 although distributed as source code. This part needs editing for clarification or accuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.208.97.156 (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Can we get a spreadsheet of the various software currently offered by Autodesk? Much like Adobe has..... seems slightly surprising it doesnt already exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.61.6 (talk) 03:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Is Autodesk Raytracer (ART) based on OptiCore?

I heard that ART is based on OptiCore in here. Are there any reliable source of it? I want to know. thx. --120.75.65.162 (talk) 06:57, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

No 😊😊 Ultrastarine (talk) 05:40, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Feedback - Controversies

There is no information about controversies about Autodesk, particularly the transition to subscription-only licensing. --185.183.104.83 (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

It's hardly controversial when all large software producers are doing it. Just look at Microsoft Office. You can't own it anymore. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Most licence agreements were precisely that - a licence to use, not “own” the software. Ambitus (talk) 13:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Press releases do not make encyclopedia content

All those press releases are available on Autodesk's press web site. None of them give us any perspective on the *meaning* of the acquisitions. We love press clippings on WP because they are so verifiable, but this is not supposed to be an indiscriminate collection of facts, but an encyclopedia. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:19, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

It is encyclopedically relevant not only to document the history of a company's growth, but also to document what happened to other companies and their products — some of which are notable in their own right. If you believe that the section you repeatedly blanked in its entirety doesn't "give us any perspective", then you clearly didn't bother to read the section. Sure, there's some cruft in there. But had you read it, you would have seen things like this:

• acquired ... a leading developer and marketer of manufacturing CAD / CAM software
• acquired ... a 3D computer graphics company
• acquire ... a developer of architecture, engineering and construction software.
• acquired assets ... used to strengthen the functionality of its core mechanical products.
• acquired ... a vendor of enterprise automated mapping/facilities management/geographic information systems

...and many more, clearly indicating the markets that Autodesk intended to penetrate or expand with each acquisition. And press releases about acquisitions also usually explain why the acquisition took place; that is, what's the benefit to one or both parties.

Does the list contain irrelevant details? Yes, I removed such details from every line I quoted above. Should the list be cleaned up? Certainly. Should the list be deleted wholesale, as you attempted to do three times? Absolutely not. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:10, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the list is rubbish, as you've pointed out - you just had to throw most of it out to explain your point above. And we're Wikipedia editors with no lives outside of what we do here. Why should we inflict the result of our lazy headline clipping on the hapless reader, who is tred of reading press releases and wants some encyclopediac overview of what Autodesk's mad rush to buy the world means? --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

You missed the point. I didn't throw out most of it. I could have gone on and listed nearly every bullet point but I stopped after the first six, thinking (evidently wrongly) that my point had been adequately made. There is no justification for discarding the entire section, which, as I have explained, is encyclopedically relevant, not only to Autodesk's history but also to other notable companies and products involved. If you have no time to clean it up, then don't. But removing the entire section, which contains useful information (as well as cruft) on nearly every line, isn't an improvement, and definitely fails to provide the encyclopedic overview you seem to desire. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:58, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

We've reached the point of loudly repeating ourselves. An encyclopedia article is not a collectin of press clippings. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:37, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

We agree on that much. What you deleted wasn't merely a collection of press clippings. And I am not the only one who reverted you. ~Anachronist (talk) 02:46, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

They aren't even press clippings, they are one-line titles of press releases, in the form "On <date> Autodesk bought <for> for <bar> millions. No one knows why, or what this means. " Total rubbish. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

In the examples I quoted above, it's quite obvious why Autodesk took each action. It isn't Wikipedia's job to explain meaning to readers, but rather to present facts. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:57, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if the same information, or much of it, could be presented in another way to make it more palatable as part of an encyclopedia article. For example:

Autodesk aquisitions

Date	Company acquired	Comment
October 6, 1992	Micro Engineering Solutions	Leading developer of CAD/CAM systems
October 4, 1993	Ithaca Software	Founded by future Autodesk CEO Carl Bass

This would get rid of the really unaesthetic "Autodesk announced", "Autodesk acquired", etc. And then it could also be collapsed, perhaps -- and an introduction to the table could be written to mention how aggressive Autodesk's acquisition history has been, and how successful (or not) the strategy has been; I'm sure someone has written about it in some reliable source. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 04:31, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

That would be a little more honest way to present press clippings. It would be nice to have some referenced business writer or industry maven give some commentary about what any of these accquistions mean. --Wtshymanski (talk) 04:37, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and would help the reader understand the relative importance of the acquisitions. Some of these were to acquire technology, but were others to suppress competition? Which ones had lasting impact (such as Ithaca, bringing along Carl Bass) and which had no particular effects on Autodesk's product line? I don't have any insight myself on most of this -- I left Autodesk right before the Genius acquisition. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:02, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

List of discontinued products

I think the discontinued products list also belongs in a collapsable table. It's not very helpful or informative, and certainly isn't very attractive. Also, where does the grossly POV section regarding Lightscape come from? And why isn't the one Autodesk product I had primary responsibility for -- CHAOS, The Software -- mentioned at all? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:02, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Autodesk headquarters crop.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. Community Tech bot (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Fusion 360

@Justlettersandnumbers and Onel5969: Fusion 360 is notable enough for its own article. The article was deleted by redirection on grounds of copyright violation. Unfortunately, version 21:47, 1 March 2019‎ has been salted so the alleged copyright violation can not be checked. Jonpatterns (talk) 14:21, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

No "alleged". Stop adding copyrighted material, or you might get blocked from editing on Wikipedia.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:27, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Onel5969, Jonpatterns, I see no indication of independent notability in either of the versions that were reverted as copyvio. Jonpatterns, if you think it is notable, why not check that you have five or six solid independent reliable sources that discuss it in depth and in detail, and if you do, go ahead and start a page in draft space? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: Thanks for the reply. It will take time to gather the sources. Jonpatterns (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Sources for Fusion 360, VW uses Autodesk Fusion to design Type 20 concept van Jonpatterns (talk) 07:25, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Discontinued products

In discontinued products : advance concret it's a french software (sorry I'm french and I'm not used to speaking English) --Bm10 (talk) 00:11, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

font is not catchy 165.16.166.105 (talk) 01:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)