Is the Subscription for Autodesk Inventor suite worth while?

[JonnyLive]

We recently purchased Autodesk Inventor Suite (Inventor 2010) and need to decide if we want the Subscription service.
The subscription seems to offer all upgrades and unlimited telephone support for the subscription year. How many upgrades can be expected in a year? How often have you used telephone support? In your experience has Subscription been worth the price?
Thank you.

 

[btrueblood]

One upgrade per year, although service packs come perhaps once or twice. Phone/email support for problems...well. I have somewhere a saved email from our local supplier/support tech staff, essentially their conclusion to my trouble was "stuff happens".

We've abandoned the subscription, and have decided to stick with 2009 (SP2 I think), to avoid the trouble that yearly upgrades have caused (older files and drawings being "broken" by the updates, loss of content center information, the list is long...). Since we can export model data to .step and .sat from this version, we figure we are good for a few years or so. Cheaper and less troublesome to upgrade at less frequent intervals, especially given Adesk's inability to maintain backwards compatability with their own product.

My company's $.02.

 

[mcgyvr]

If 2010 does everything you need and you will never need to send files back and forth to companies with Inventor that do update then forget subscription but be prepared to pay the full cost again for the program if something happens like a microsoft update that causes your version inventor to not work and Autodesk is not supporting it anymore so they aren't doing hotfixes. We are on subscription but I do send files to others so its great to be able to freely open/resend/modify/resend and keep the models native features/functionality.

and btrueblood there are very few if any (I can't name one can you?) 3d cad applications that suppport backwards compatibility.

 

[btrueblood]

".. if any (I can't name one can you?) 3d cad applications that suppport backwards compatibility. "

Um. Well, I know of several, the original AutoCad included, that can open older version files without causing conniptions (drawing dimensions losing associativity), and breaking the file for older version users.

 

[btrueblood]

Oh, and FWIW, I view it as a mark of a decent piece of software, that it can be viewed as stable enough that annual updates really aren't required. Kudos to Adesk that they have brought Inventor through (most of?) its teething years.

 

[mcgyvr]

I guess I should have been more clear as to how I define a 3d cad program. Autocad is not in that list thats 2d even though it has some basic 3d functionality. I'm talking about parametric type true 3d cad programs like Inventor, Solidworks, ProE,etc.. None support backwards compatibility.

 

[JonnyLive]

Thanks for the input.
My company needed to respond today to get the reduced rate for subscription. Based on the above comments I have recommended that we get the first year at the reduced rate and evaluate it yearly.

 

[mcgyvr]

Good choice

 

[btrueblood]

Good luck, Jonny. If this is your first purchase of CAD software, it's probably smart to run with the subscription for awhile.

".. None support backwards compatibility."

Well...to varying degrees. But, I am no expert. I just know that EVERY release of Inventor has been that way, and that not every release of SW was. It's irritating, time-consuming, and troublesome to have to update files, reverify models and drawings, etc. etc. I think many/most software companies have become very cavalier of late with this issue. Sorry to be so cranky.

 

[mcgyvr]

SolidWorks NEVER supported backwards compatibility either. It has been repoted that they are looking into it though. (Or course so is every other cad company)

 

[Yagonyonok]

My company used to use the Subscription offered by AutoDesk, but got tired of the annual fees, and the upgrade headaches. We finally decided to stick with 2010, and to hire tech support through the company that we have been buying the software from (it was considerably cheaper).

I agree that if you are just starting with Inventor, you are deffinitely going to want to have some sort of tech support available (especially if you use Vault).