I was an AutoCAD reseller when AutoCAD LT was announced and subsequently rolled out.
We saw LT as being a lower cost 2D-only version of AutoCAD, and figured it would be an an impetus for the many people who were pirating AutoCAD to "get legal." Especially since LT was planned to include AutoLisp. We figured that we'd more than make up for cannibalization of revenue from full AutoCAD sales with incremental revenue from LT sales.
The thought process at Autodesk was probably similar -- but at the last moment, someone either woke up, ran some more projections, lost their nerve, or just got overruled -- and AutoLISP was removed from LT. As a result, the product got a lot less interesting to serious users -- though it was still a big seller.
This is all history, and it's not relevant to today, except to understand that there is a dynamic tension between the sales of AutoCAD LT and the sales of full AutoCAD.
Autodesk, as a company, is much more mature today than it was in the past, and it's very good at balancing the sales of various products to meet its earnings goals. It does this with pricing, bundling (putting various products together, as with the Inventor Series), and with feature differentiation.
The stock market appreciates Autodesk's ability to do this. It's a sign of strong management, and is rewarded with higher stock prices. However, there are external forces that make it harder for Autodesk to control the balance of sales
between LT and full AutoCAD.
One of those external forces is drcAuto, which makes add-on software for LT that makes it a lot closer in capabilities to full AutoCAD. When someone buys drcAuto's LT Toolkit Max, they're a lot less likely to buy full AutoCAD.
I don't have to be a mind reader to be able to figure out what
Autodesk management might think of that. There is ample evidence that Autodesk has done what they can to discourage products such as LT Toolkit Max.
I met with Gary D'Arcy, from drcAuto, last year at his offices in Sydney, Australia. He related some interesting stories of technical roadblocks that they'd found built into LT that seemed to have no purpose other than to frustrate their ability to add capabilities to the product. In one case, one of these roadblocks inadvertantly caused a serious bug that resulted in Autodesk issuing a patch for LT.
This sort of situation highlights the truth that Autodesk's needs are not necessarly the same as those of its customers.
Users have, ever since LT came out, wanted a version that included Lisp. Autodesk has chosen not to provide this. If they had, then drcAuto would not likely have developed LT Toolkit Max.
There are other examples of companies that have stepped in to offer capabilities that Autodesk has chosen not to provide. One of the most visible is SolidWorks, which provides DWGgateway, a free plug-in for full AutoCAD that adds the ability to open and save DWG files back to Release 14. In the next version of the product, they plan to add another feature that Autodesk chose not to include: PDF creation.
DrcAuto and SolidWorks certainly have self-serving motives, but their products serve the needs of users, providing capabilities that Autodesk chooses not to offer.
It's easy for me to say Autodesk ought to add AutoLISP to LT, put R14 DWG save back into AutoCAD, and include PDF output. But I don't have to deal with aggressive competitors or demanding shareholders, as Autodesk does.
Still, it seems to me that deliberately choosing to not fulfill obvious user needs is asking for trouble -- and invites competitors to step in and fulfill those needs.
You can see some past commentary on LT Toolkit Max at [http://www.cadwire.net/commentary/?27017]
(Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not those of Cyon Research.)
