Breaking News – Inventor LT Available in India

I have been some noise about Autodesk limiting access to Inventor LT only to people in the US and a few other countries (see “Why Is Inventor LT Not Available Worldwide?“). I could never understand the logic behind doing so, apart from the rather obvious explanation that Inventor LT could end up cannibalizing sales of the full blown Inventor product. My country, India, was on the list of countries where Inventor LT was denied.

The other day, at the Autodesk Manufacturing Tech Day event, Clay Helm of Autodesk PR made it a point to introduce me to Peter Vinh, Product Manager of Inventor LT, who shared with me the good news that Inventor LT is now available in India. The formal announcement is yet to be made, but the product has already been added to the price list of Indian resellers. Its is also important to note that Inventor LT comes with a license of AutoCAD LT.

For those who are not aware, Inventor LT is a stripped down version of the full blown Inventor product. One of its main limitations is that you cannot model assemblies, only parts. I can only see this as a good thing. 2D AutoCAD users can use this as a stepping stone to transition to full 3D. They will still have an AutoCAD LT license while they get around to adding Inventor LT to their workflow. Later when they feel the need for the features of the full blown Inventor product, they can upgrade.