Autodesk software now free to students

stabbington

Autodesk are now giving their products away for free to teachers, secondary, college, and university students:

http://news.autodesk.com/press-release/autodesk-consumer-group-and-education/autodesk-makes-design-software-free-schools-worl

Seems to be pretty much everything including Max, Maya/LT, Mudbox and a ton of other really useful stuff!

http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/students-k12/all-products

Neox

uhm and what is new about this?

the software has been free for years for students, tutors, teachers etc

Spoon

has it? I thought it just used to be very cheap?

stabbington

Ah, it appears the distinction is that it's now also free for institutions (previously paid) and for use in classes, as well as full secondary school student access (who couldn't use autodesk software for free at all until a few months ago).

I presumed from all the noise on techcrunch and the like that it was a bit more of a sudden shift to free access than it actually is; I still remember having to pay a good chunk of money for a student edition of Max when I was at university. Although I guess that was horrifyingly long ago now.

Neox

ah I see, yeah this makes sense.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Okay, this is pretty awesome.

PyrZern

I'm learning online, I'm also a student

Makkon

That's a lot of money they are not going to be getting anymore. Schools would pay full price for each new version of the autodesk suite, every year, regardless of improvements (or lack thereof).

Hope they're okay with that giant hole in their pocket.

Lamont

Makkon wrote: »

That's a lot of money they are not going to be getting anymore. Schools would pay full price for each new version of the autodesk suite, every year, regardless of improvements (or lack thereof).

Hope they're okay with that giant hole in their pocket.

Future employees and studio heads who make buying decisions.

Jonas Ronnegard

or they saw their own lack of future "good" updates, and to keep their monopoly in the industry they are trying to concentrate their efforts to where it all starts.

Ged

In my experience the university never had any good software or hardware and told us to go out and download a student version for ourselves, so this may make no difference to some institutions.

Lazerus Reborn

Makkon wrote: »

That's a lot of money they are not going to be getting anymore. Schools would pay full price for each new version of the autodesk suite, every year, regardless of improvements (or lack thereof).

Hope they're okay with that giant hole in their pocket.

University bought 30 seats of 2010 for a stupid amount, then couldn't even teach with the software as they previously sacked 3 tutors off the course. The only qualified and semi qualified users.

At least if it was free it wouldn't have been such a kick in the teeth haha:thumbup:

kanga

This has been going on for a few years and is extremely clever marketing. You dont only get to use a few mainstream apps but the whole range. The idea is you can borrow the soft but you cant produce commercial work with the educational license. It takes quite a bit of effort to learn to use 3d software, the chances that you will stay on the application you started with (for a long time) are big. Our college uses AD because of their setup. I am guessing this will generate new customers, higher revenue, more funding for development and bugfixes

CourtC999

I'm a student and I know 3ds Max is free for 3 years. I've been a student for 4 years and still have my 3ds Max license.

Lamont

Jonas Ronnegard wrote: »

or they saw their own lack of future "good" updates, and to keep their monopoly in the industry they are trying to concentrate their efforts to where it all starts.

Money!!