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just in Fusion 360 for $80 for the entire year

So? Nobody says any seller has to maintain Black Friday prices past Black Friday.

They had spark of interest of fusion 360 accounts for $25 and now they will to get $80... when the program is free for most users in the first place. That's what I have problem with it
 
To me I see this as rather telling about the product and their push for it to be adopted by many. When you rely on discounted prices to gain market share vs have a product sells itself on its own merit it is not good. $300/year is very inexpensive and if you can't gain market share at that price in this industry then you may have a different problem that pricing.

My business model from the day I started was to make the best product I could, and the work will come. When I started 9 years ago I purchased Alibe Design it was at a great purchase price, but he cost of ownership was much more that SW IMO. I was constantly looking for work around, it lacked the extensive assembly features of SW, no integrated CAM at the time etc.... I basically paid for it everyday in lost efficiency.

They seem to have lost their focus on the industrial users and looking more into makers and hobbyist.
 
For now this is just Autodesk's sandbox where they are trying to build the future. It is doable because they have a good revenue stream from other products for now. I downloaded Fusion, tinkered with it a little, but once i figured out that their model requires my design data to reside on their cloud I backed out and deleted it. I can't see any serious business going forward with having their intellectual property stored in a location where the terms and conditions of the storage are totally out of their control.
 
To me I see this as rather telling about the product and their push for it to be adopted by many. When you rely on discounted prices to gain market share vs have a product sells itself on its own merit it is not good. $300/year is very inexpensive and if you can't gain market share at that price in this industry then you may have a different problem that pricing.

They seem to have lost their focus on the industrial users and looking more into makers and hobbyist.

Interesting perspective Cady. While I'm far from a fusion 'user', I continue to look at/tinker with it, and I am more and more impressed - its seems like you've sort of gone the other way and soured on it more over time? Are you continuing to use it as you were before, or are you still mostly entrenched with HSMworks?

I too and scratching my head over the constant 'deals' and have yet to jump as I still qualify as 'hobby/startup' in my use of it. I guess the lack of a steady marketing/pricing plan in some ways precludes me from dedicating more time to learning to use it well, as I'm worried that as soon as I extend the effort, Autodesk will try to capitalize on the large fan base and either jack up the price, or separate the capability into two or more tiers - a toy version for hobbyists, and a real (pricey) version for folks that need real capability to do real work.

Brent
 
Interesting perspective Cady. While I'm far from a fusion 'user', I continue to look at/tinker with it, and I am more and more impressed - its seems like you've sort of gone the other way and soured on it more over time? Are you continuing to use it as you were before, or are you still mostly entrenched with HSMworks?

I too and scratching my head over the constant 'deals' and have yet to jump as I still qualify as 'hobby/startup' in my use of it. I guess the lack of a steady marketing/pricing plan in some ways precludes me from dedicating more time to learning to use it well, as I'm worried that as soon as I extend the effort, Autodesk will try to capitalize on the large fan base and either jack up the price, or separate the capability into two or more tiers - a toy version for hobbyists, and a real (pricey) version for folks that need real capability to do real work.

Brent

Yes the constant pricing deals and changes is perplexing. They change the Ultimate version and rolled all features back to the basic and are going to build new Ultimate features. It just feels like they don't have a very cohesive plan in place. Or are feeling pressure from Onshape. I am really not sure which. I believe in the statement I once heard, buy something good and pay for it once, but something cheap and pay for it for life.

I am on the early adopter pricing for fusion ultimate. I probably would have dropped it this year but when the rolled the Ultimate features back to basic they gave early adopters a free year. I play with it when I get a chance and can only really use it for personal project of parts of my own design. I don't machine any customers parts in there. I look at it pretty close at times as I want to see what is one year supposed to make it back to HSMWorks if it ever does. I plan to follow Fusion at least until my subscription runs out.

The features in Fusion are nice but just not what I need. I prefer the assembly tools and assembly level features in SW. As for being entrenched in HSMWorks, I guess you could say I am. I use it for milling but still have to rely heavily on SmartCAM for turning since the basically stopped developing it in HSMWorks.
 
Good info csharp - I too come from solid works and have almost no experience with assemblies in fusion (but do in SW), so maybe I should dig into that soon to get that perspective (all my work is product, so assemblies are essential).

For my needs (machining), Fusion's integrated Cam is a silver bullet when compared to Onshape. I can't see even trying onshape without it having CAM (and not CAM I have to pay additional for).

As for the pricing, it reminds me of Altium's (CAD/CAM system for electronic design - I'm an electrical engineer actually) approach about 5 years ago. They cut the price from $10k to $2.5k for a few years, got a lot of people to adopt it, and then crept, and then jumped the price back up. I fear the same with Fusion...

Brent

Brent
 
Good info csharp - I too come from solid works and have almost no experience with assemblies in fusion (but do in SW), so maybe I should dig into that soon to get that perspective (all my work is product, so assemblies are essential).

For my needs (machining), Fusion's integrated Cam is a silver bullet when compared to Onshape. I can't see even trying onshape without it having CAM (and not CAM I have to pay additional for).

As for the pricing, it reminds me of Altium's (CAD/CAM system for electronic design - I'm an electrical engineer actually) approach about 5 years ago. They cut the price from $10k to $2.5k for a few years, got a lot of people to adopt it, and then crept, and then jumped the price back up. I fear the same with Fusion...

Brent

Brent

I don't want to make is sound as though you can't accomplish the same results as SW. But things missing like a true hole wizard to place standard hole for fasteners. Having to download bolts from McMaster CARR is not as nice as SW Toolbox. I just did an assembly and used the SW hole series to propagate the holes back to the components and add the fasteners. Very slick. I know, its a new product and will grow. But I need to make money today:D
 
I don't want to make is sound as though you can't accomplish the same results as SW. But things missing like a true hole wizard to place standard hole for fasteners. Having to download bolts from McMaster CARR is not as nice as SW Toolbox. I just did an assembly and used the SW hole series to propagate the holes back to the components and add the fasteners. Very slick. I know, its a new product and will grow. But I need to make money today:D

Speaking of Solidworks.. I'm curious whats gone to happen at Solidworks World
 
Speaking of Solidworks.. I'm curious whats gone to happen at Solidworks World

I heard a rumor that SolidWorks was going to be moving towards a monthly subscription deal (or at least, offering one). Problem is though, SolidWorks is starting to fall behind the tech curve, and DSS seems determined to not catch it up, but instead focus on creating whole new products (i.e. $$$). SolidWorks still has no integrated, first-party CAM (and DSS let their best hope for ever making that happen get acquired by Autodesk). They also have no NURBS based surface modeling and no real direct editing - those aren't necessarily applicable to a machinist doing primarily prismatic work, but go watch some demos of NX Realize Shape and NX Synchronous Modeling to be blown away by what quality CAD *can* do.
 
I heard a rumor that SolidWorks was going to be moving towards a monthly subscription deal (or at least, offering one). Problem is though, SolidWorks is starting to fall behind the tech curve, and DSS seems determined to not catch it up, but instead focus on creating whole new products (i.e. $$$). SolidWorks still has no integrated, first-party CAM (and DSS let their best hope for ever making that happen get acquired by Autodesk). They also have no NURBS based surface modeling and no real direct editing - those aren't necessarily applicable to a machinist doing primarily prismatic work, but go watch some demos of NX Realize Shape and NX Synchronous Modeling to be blown away by what quality CAD *can* do.


NX is nice.. I wish I still had access to the program but I moved jobs :(

I miss NX.. I used nx for design work and program lathes, mill-turns and 3 axis mills
 
NX is nice.. I wish I still had access to the program but I moved jobs :(

I miss NX.. I used nx for design work and program lathes, mill-turns and 3 axis mills

I'm really hoping that things like Fusion 360, and SW going to a monthly sub, and the generally lowered cost of software ownership puts pressure on Siemens to bring down the price of NX CAD/CAM.

They really make their money with Team Center (which is the big market leader in the PLM game). It makes a lot of strategic sense to let NX build a broader base of users, and really rake in the money with Team Center, as TC scales well (business model/revenue/potential customer base) wise as an organization grows. It would allow Siemens to totally hack the market and own both the very high end enterprise customers and the tiny shops/hobby market.
 
I'm really hoping that things like Fusion 360, and SW going to a monthly sub, and the generally lowered cost of software ownership puts pressure on Siemens to bring down the price of NX CAD/CAM.

They really make their money with Team Center (which is the big market leader in the PLM game). It makes a lot of strategic sense to let NX build a broader base of users, and really rake in the money with Team Center, as TC scales well (business model/revenue/potential customer base) wise as an organization grows. It would allow Siemens to totally hack the market and own both the very high end enterprise customers and the tiny shops/hobby market.

Good luck with that. And I mean that in the most sincerest way possible. Siemens has never seemed to give a single shite about how we feel about their pricing. Ever.

NX is nice.. I wish I still had access to the program but I moved jobs :(
I miss NX.. I used nx for design work and program lathes, mill-turns and 3 axis mills

I really need to get back to using it for programming. I fell away from it for a while and can't seem to find the time.

I downloaded Fusion, tinkered with it a little, but once i figured out that their model requires my design data to reside on their cloud I backed out and deleted it. I can't see any serious business going forward with having their intellectual property stored in a location where the terms and conditions of the storage are totally out of their control.

This has always been my opinion and position about that issue. Makes zero sense from a business standpoint, regardless of price. I don't care how they tally ( skew? :scratchchin: ) the numbers, I believe this is affecting them adversely.

I say all of this as a very early adopter and supporter of theirs. I truly thought they had changed their ways and were changing direction. I was ( and remain ) disappointed to have seen it borne out otherwise. I can not say as I disagree with much of what Lonnie has written in the past...
 
Zahnrad Kopf;2686050 This has always been my opinion and position about that issue. Makes [B said:
zero sense[/B] from a business standpoint, regardless of price. .

You can save your files locally so I just don't see this as big deal

THe tech support is spotty, so a low price of admission helps those who are a bit distrustful
 
You can save your files locally so I just don't see this as big deal
THe tech support is spotty, so a low price of admission helps those who are a bit distrustful

I respectfully disagree on both points.

Yes, one can save locally. But one's data is still "out there" and available to others whether one desires it to be or not.** That, simply, is not acceptable to me OR my customers. Period. End of conversation.

Some times people like to counter that point by pointing out that others almost always get their files via email these days. Fact of the matter is that is not actually the case all the time. We have a number of customers that send us DVD's and USB sticks by courier. Encrypted. We also have other customers that send us a link to an encrypted download from their own protected server. So it is not always fast and loose as many companies wish you to believe. Customers are getting more and more protective of their data.

As for the low price and spotty support, in my mind price has little to do with it. Either offer support or don't. If you wish to simply dabble with it, then say up front that you wish to support the crowd support template. Don't half ass both.

Just my own 2 pfennig. Yours may vary...


** - Ask Anthem and the Federal Government ( for starters ) how that feels.
 








 
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