A Small Clarification

I would like to issue a small clarification regarding my article titled “Some Constructive Criticism“. Some reader’s seem to be getting the idea that I am asking Autodesk to provide free support at their discussion groups. That is not what I had in mind.

Autodesk sells support, so you cannot possibly expect it to offer free support on their discussion groups. Thats their business model and they are entitled to it. I was referring to questions like “Will AutoCAD be available for the Mac?”, something general and which does not warrant the purchase of a support subscription. I say this because Autodesk alone can answer these questions, not users. Since Autodesk does not bother to respond, users pitch in with their theories, which more than often leads to Autodesk bashing. If you follow these newsgroups, you will notice that there are certain individuals who take part in these discussions with the sole intention to crucify Autodesk.

What is the point in spending large sums of money on large PR campaigns when you allow people to spread wrong information about your company on your own web site?

By the way, nobody from Autodesk has responded to the question yet. It’s about 10 days old now, so I guess this goes into the pile of unanswered questions.