Upgrade advice

Today it seemed like all the cadd newsletters and blogs (most of them anyway) were talking about the latest release of AutoCAD (with the catchy name of AutoCAD 2007) that is due to be released in late March.   While the pundits can’t wait, and are touting all the new 3D features I’ll lay money that the average user is thinking – “Oh shit, not another upgrade.”

Having just gone through a major upgrade at work (from MicroStation J to MicroStation V8) in 2005 I can relate.  For both users and the support staffs new versions suck.  Not that the features aren’t cool, they rarely seems worth the pain.  When you think that the average user at most uses 10-20 percent of a program’s features you have to wonder how bad we really need new ones.  I know the vendors say that the users demand them but to tell you the truth I’ve never met an average user who has ever been asked about what they need – Have you?

Unfortunately the biggest problem with a new version is all the grunt work you have to do to get them installed and running.  Not only are there general problems inherent in any new release, but it is rare that all the other programs you depend on will work with the new release out of the box -- this is where the problems really begin.  It seems to me that users tend to skip at least every other cadd release these days.  You think the vendors might take the hint…

If I could offer any advice to the cadd vendors of the about upgrades it would be this.  Stop worrying about features and make sure that when they release a new version that it solves our problems rather than creating new ones…