Inventor Fusion Technology Preview 2 – Part 1

Its almost midnight here in India. I just got a briefing on Inventor Fusion Technology Preview 2 from Kevin Schneider, Product Manager, Manufacturing Emerging Products and Technologies of Autodesk. I was one of the few who were not too happy with Technology Preview 1 because it lacked the much hyped “Fusion” part. However, this time around, I am glad to report there there is all the fusion I need in Inventor Fusion TP2.

I also noticed a change in Autodesk’s PR strategy as compared to that used in TP 1. In a post titled “Bound, Gagged and Pissed” I wrote:

Frankly, I never really understood why companies make such a big issue regarding information about new versions of their products. For example, take the recent launch of Inventor Fusion by Autodesk. Some “select” members of the press and bloggers (which included me) were given access to the software and a demo three weeks before the official launch and were asked to shut up. To be fair to Autodesk, their PR agency asked me before hand whether I wanted to shut up and I agreed. I figured that if I began talking about Fusion before Autodesk was ready to sell it, people would stop buying Inventor and wait for Fusion instead since it was made out to be a drastic change and not just a regular upgrade. As it turned out the Fusion which was eventually released had the “fusion” part missing and was available as a free download on Autodesk Labs. So I cannot understand what the secrecy was all about. What calamity would have come to pass had the press/bloggers started writing about Fusion when they were told about it?

This time the press and bloggers were given presentations on Friday and the software was made available for download on Autodesk Labs two days later on Monday (today). In fact Ralph Grabowski wrote about TP2 on Friday itself because there was no gag order this time around. So I guess ranting a bit every now and then may not be a bad idea after all.

I missed the Friday briefing. Well, actually I rescheduled it for today (my Monday night) as I had a far more important and mission critical appointment on Friday night – my weekly Friday night boozing session with cronies 😉

Al Dean has an article on TP2 on the DEVELOP3D blog. Here is an short Autodesk video showing the Change Manager which is basically the “fusion” part of Inventor Fusion.

So why am I talking about PR strategies and linking to articles/videos of others instead of sharing my own views and experience of Inventor Fusion TP2? Well, that’s because I live in a country that is not on Autodesk’s list of favorites. Autodesk has decided to grant download access only to people from select countries and India does not figure on that list. Why? This is how Kevin explained it:

We are limiting access to this technology preview to countries where we have local representatives trained to help users with the software if they encounter any problems. Also these are areas that we have determined will help us validate our technology.

I think I had better not comment on that. Kevin promised to give me a link to download Inventor Fusion TP2. So I am cool.

Anyways, I need to leave office now and find my way home. You make sure to stay tuned to this channel. I get the feeling that I am going to have a lot to say about Inventor Fusion in the days to come.