Opinions

Is Autodesk Promoting IntelliCAD?

I was dumbfounded to see the following statement at an Autodesk blog.

“IntelliCAD is a low cost Computer Aided Design alternative that provides DWG file support as well as support for industry standard commands, menu files, script files, shape files, text fonts, hatch patterns, line types, LISP programs, SDS/C++ programs, and VBA programs.”

Take good note of the words “low cost CAD alternative”. Alternative to what? AutoCAD, obviously.

To be fair, the post is actually about DWF and how it has been adopted by people other than Autodesk. However, I still cannot digest the fact that an Autodesk blogger is virtually promoting IntelliCAD as a “low cost [AutoCAD] alternative” on an Autodesk sponsored blog. Ironically, Autodesk’s CEO believes that programs like IntelliCAD “create tech support queries” for his company and is currently quite busy suing their developers.

It seems to me that Autodesk has no editorial control over their bloggers, which is a good thing for blogging. If this is indeed the case, then maybe things are about to change.