CADDIT CAD CAM CNC Software Blog
June 26, 2008 – 11:39 pm- Why Buy AutoCAD LT? Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:54:00
Economic slowdown, credit crunch, sustainability - these once academic buzz words have become household language in the last several months. But the falling prices of oil and stocks hasn’t affected the high price of AutoCAD and its limited feature version, AutoCAD LT. Professional engineering staff, including architects, civil, structural and industrial designers in various disciplines are affected. The American Institute of Architects reports, “The AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) recorded its ninth straight monthly decline in October. However, the October drop to 36.2 was the steepest decline in its history, surpassing the weakness reported last February and March as the broader economy was just beginning to decelerate”.
Autodesk CEO Carl Bass admits, “We realize that there is no quick or easy response to the current economic environment.” For years Autodesk enjoyed good profits from its popular brands in a lucrative industry. However, Autodesk has offered no significant initiatives at this point to ease the financial burden felt by many of their customers. Retail price for Autodesk’s latest AutoCAD LT 2009 (”lite” version) CAD software still averages well above $1000.00 USD.
Seeking an affordable alternative that they can trust, CAD engineers are choosing to use progeCAD instead. progeCAD sales have increased a dramatic 400% over the past year in some areas. This may be partially due to the increasing reliability of the overall progeCAD program to read and write AutoCAD files, as well as to offer a user interface and commands very similar to those used in AutoCAD. But it may also have to do with the fact that a company can buy almost three licenses of progeCAD for the same price they would pay for one of AutoCAD LT.
The full version 30-day demo of progeCAD (save and printing are not disabled) can be downloaded from CADDIT. Try it yourself!
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