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realo

200$ per month per seat is nothing .

A single 3D CAD license pack for the guys in our R&D group costs multiple thousands of dollars per seat, per month.

It's about time software seats get some love too.

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AutoCAD is $175 per user per month [1].

[1] https://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/buy

AutoCAD is still the budget-friendly CAD program it has always been. You don't build big boats in AutoCAD.

Except LLM's even with Vision are still useless at AutoCAD let alone Revit (please dont quote SCAD LLM's at me, useless). Knowledge based approaches still win.

I might agree "AutoCAD" is the current level LLM's are at, but wait until your design departments discovers "Revit", its another ballpark (in wasted cots, engineers on site still get "clashes").

Revit costs are high, and the end results are marginally better - but local LLM's tokens are cheaper 24/7 at "AutoCAD" level - "Revit" level tokens will make Ubers CTO/COO weep harder than they already do. While producing results no better than "Revit" does (engineers still face "clashes").

Winch Design [0], which have built some of the world's largest superyachts [1], seem to be using AutoCad. [2] Afaik it's also the same with Lürssen (but don't quote me on that)

[0] https://winchdesign.com/ [1] https://www.superyachts.com/directory/1516/winch-design/flee... [2] https://www.autodesk.com/design-make/articles/naval-architec...

Likely not the "base model" of AutoCAD.

Those tools are used in ways that they're integral to processes. They have their equivalents of ticket systems that are linked to code repositories with LFSs and bunch of IDE type tools and automated and manual test systems and build systems. Their equivalents of PR discussions and Selenium screenshots needs to check all boxes in the right ways for legal and traceability purposes.

Without all that might be $175/user/month but you're not shipping apps with just vi and bare gcc.

>Without all that might be $175/user/month but you're not shipping apps with just vi and bare gcc.

You're right, Linus uses Emacs.

As someone completely outside the 3D design world who always thought of AutoCAD as the gold standard - really? What program would be used instead? Please enlighten me.

Cadence and Ansys have entered the chat. A bunch of other highly-specialized engineering software has entered the chat. Licenses are on the order of 10-100k/seat.

For a pretty funny comment about pricing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chipdesign/comments/1ajrli2/cadence...

Glad to run into this after some time!

I guess we are welcoming the software people to the world of expensive tools. Just sad that the FOSS alternatives of these tools are not as powerful whereas software industry still has FOSS tools to fall back on.

Yeah, it’s nothing, and it’s also not the cost that enterprises are paying. As the article states, the price is $20 per seat per month, PLUS per-token API usage. Enterprises are paying consumption billing, not fixed rate oversubscribed “all you can eat per seat.”

CATIA licenses which are the most expensive I've seen are roughly $600/month per user. Where are you seeing "thousands of dollars per seat"?

CFD might reasonably be considered part of CAD and something like ansys costs about as much as catia. Still only doubles it though.

CATIA with plugins can go up to 100k a year. That’s what we currently pay

100k per seat? That's crazy. How do you even hire or train employees with software that expensive?

One guy retire and a college graduate goes in.

Wouldn't each plugin be a different piece of 'software'?

Sure. Is CAD going to be used by every working human?

Now add up the engineer’s salary and you’ll find that software seats already cost more than those R&D ones.

But when previously your software developer tools were free, that's a huge increase

How many guys is that? Every single white collar worker is in the AI ICP (customer profile).

edit: typo

white collar*, not color

What does ICP mean?

Insane Clown Posse, though given the context here probably Ideal Customer Profile.

The similarities are quite stunning, though, as I'm sure both sets of ICPs have no idea how LLMs work.

Now hold on there, let's not cast doubt on ICP. I'm sure they'll surprise us, as they always have.

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