Day 2 is a much more relaxed day. Breakfast served in the Sunshine Room, actually a long hall with a curved glass ceiling. Around the breakfast tables are stations with Autodesk's 2008 line of software, and then interspersed are examples of products made by customers, usually mechanical customers.
You can tell this is an international press event: the hot water is forever running out as we international journalists drink our tea.
Abhi Singh spent 3/4-hour showing me the new AutoCAD. He said that upon moving the the USA, he forced himself to like coffee, since this is not a tea-drinking nation. It's so bad here that when I ask for tea, the waiter inevitably responds, "Hot tea, or iced?" Sigh.
It was easy to ask Mr Singh questions about AutoCAD 2008, for we were uninterrupted. What a change from 1986, when the A/E/C Systems crowds thronged the Autodesk booth for a glimpse of the ground-breaking AutoCAD v2.5. Now it's 21 years later, and it's the verticals -- mech, arch, gis -- that get the attention. The AutoCAD station is lonely.
Now it's time for lunch in the Sunshine Room of this 132-year-old hotel. Autodesk selected the wonderful Palace Hotel to house the journalists. Tall ceilings and wide hallways: this hotel has been kept up in its old state.
[Disclosure: Autodesk provided airfare, hotel accommodation, and meals to journalists attending this event.]
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