I think a lot of people feel the same way, Jim. It absolutely does let people give the technology a try without a huge investment, which I think can only seed the market and promote adoption. I think some of the EDA vendors have experimented with similar cloud-based, usage-priced models and I'm sure we'll be seeing many more going forward.
The pricing for minimal use lets people try it without a huge investment. I wish other design automation vendors would adopt this model, instead of thousands of $ per seat, with most capabilitys unused most of the time. I hope it is succesful.
Naperlou: I checked back with Autodesk and they are using Amazon's infrastructure to host their cloud-based offerings. Not sure where you land on that in terms of security/redunancy/data center capabilities, but from what I can gather from covering the cloud world, the infrastructure-as-a-service capabilities are pretty robust--likely more so than any single vendor (definitely those smaller than Autodesk) could provide.
Your point about pricing is spot on. Autodesk seems to be the first in the CAD space to take a crack at cloud-based pricing. Given that many in the Design News community weigh in with complaints/issues related to CAD's traditionally high cost (price of software plus expensive on-going maintenance fees), I'm curious what people think about this emerging model.
Beth, this is an interesting development. Do you know if Autodesk is using a public cloud, or do they have their own private cloud resources? I was at CloudConnect last week and there were some interesting offerings and developments. For a particular class of applications public cloud can be very effective, but things are different. Autodesk's pricing on this is also very interesting.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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