Truth or Myth

[TrafficDesigner]

A friend of mine who works at another firm told me that his firm only purchases AutoCAD on the even years because they are supposedly (according to him) the working versions of the previous releases.

This sounds like an urban legend to me, but I was wondering if anyone else has heard of this?

 

[ctopher]

It is only a myth. You can purchase working versions at any time.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 1.1
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-07-07)
ctopher's blog

 

[DonPhillips]

Years ago, we only bought the even releases. It seemed the features each release were not worth the money and the training. When I joined, we were on Release 10 (I learned on Release 7, which did not need a math co-processor for my 286 processor). I remember hearing all the problems with Release 13 but we had skipped it. After Release 14, 2000 and 2000i came out, we skipped it, and went to 2002.

This is probably what was being talked about.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[zdas04]

Its not really an urban legend. Most major software houses have their big feature-adding releases on a 2-3 year development cycle. This means that a release one year will have a bunch of new stuff, but might be a tad buggy. The following year they'll come up with a "new" release that simply incorporates all the bug fixes plus a little bit of glitz from the wish list. Sometimes the third year will be more of the same, but more often the third year will be a real upgrade.

I'm not certain, but it looks like AutoDesk is on a 3 year cycle, so sticking to the even years would be a bad thing about half the time. My technique with AutoCAD is let a new release mature for about 6 months and watch the message boards. If most everyone is happy I buy the upgrade.

David

 

[TrafficDesigner]

Thanks for the input. That must be what his firm does, but the explanation was a little foggy. Watching the message boards is a good idea.

 

[cvg]

for large firms it is just way too expensive to upgrade software every year. IT and CADD staff for our company spend literally thousands of manhours every time there is an upgrade. so 2 - 3 years is the norm. similar with maintaining current upgrades of windows, word, excel etc. generally we try to lag behind so as to maintain a broader base of compatibility with our clients and with other consultants.