"Autodesk shifts design apps to the cloud"

[luceric]

Luceric,
Excuse my ignorance here but are you suggesting for client senstive activites that Autodesk would offer private cloud solutions?

If so, would this be on Autodesk hardware or on a client's own hardware? If its the former, I don't see this changing anything in the way of companies exposure to securing client data on third-party systems. If its the latter, then what is the difference between a private cloud and the old "thin client" approach that was employed and discarded years ago?

Cloud services aren't mainly about big Windows GUI application remotely. That's the dumbest use for it, and there is no saving in that if the application is resource-intensive. They're about running some part of that application, for example some processing, distributed on remote machines, so it'll be faster.

[Hirazi Blue]

One should not read Autodesk press release about Autocad and extrapolate that this has an immediate implication to M&E applications. There are two different companies doing two different things, occasionally doing things together when it makes sense.

That's obviously good to know but looking at the different press releases it's hard to make sense of this division (which seems so obvious now you have explained it). The press releases aren't always explicitly clear as to where they originate from. All of them are issued from "SAN RAFAEL, Calif.", obviously, but not all of them make perfectly clear to which part of the company they apply. So reading them and making any sense out of them can be quite a pain...
And stories like the one I started this thread with ("Autodesk shifts design apps to the cloud") are even harder to unravel for an amateur like me. If Autodesk wants to make this division between M&E and the rest transparent, they may want to start to write clearer press releases (always explicitly citing the division that issued it)...
;)

P.S. And Project Twitch sent a mixed message anyway, as Maya was prominently featured in that experiment...

[Bellsey]

The thing is, there are many users out there who literally just see Autodesk as Maya, Max, etc, and nothing else. They are oblivious to just how big Autodesk is beyond Media & Entertainment. Its hard to believe but true, so when any news goes out like this many just assume thats its to do with the M&E products.

Actually the press release is very clear, it mentions the division and specific products, but it can still be confusing to some.
Firstly it mentions the PSEB division - Platform, Solutions and Emerging Business managed by Amar Hanspal (great guy) who apart from managing the Autocad products also manages cross-divisional technologies(suites and web services, product installation, localization, etc).
Then further on, it actually mentions specific products such as Premium or Ultimate editions of the Autodesk Design, and Building Design Suites, and Revit Architecture or Autodesk Revit MEP.

Essentially press releases have to be very clear due to business rules how and what they apply to, so if a product is not mentioned then the news does not apply to it. Some of the cloud services aren't available for the some of the other products, so they aren't mentioned. If they were then there would of been more information there.

[luceric]

btw, Autodesk's revenues being public, we know that Media and Entertainment(Maya, Max, Flame, etc) is around only 12% of Autodesk's revenue. That means 88% of it, isn't. People (including myself before going into Autodesk) are blissfully unaware of how big CAD is. now you should have a better understanding of the web site, press releases, and everything.

[Hirazi Blue]

now you should have a better understanding of the web site, press releases, and everything.

I agree, although I might have some future questions about the "everything" part.