University of the Pacific's School of Engineering and Computer Science of Stockton, California is standardizing on IMSI/design's DoubleCAD XT PRO for 2D CAD instruction. (This is the commerial versionl; DoubleCAD XT is the free one.)
Since CAD vendors are known to give their software away for free to educational sites, what's to gain by going with DoubleCAD Pro? Here's the reasons sysadmin Paul Burdick gives:
- DoubleCAD XT PRO feels familiar [to AutoCAD LT, the only competitor CAD package mentioned in the press release] yet had more features, like geometric constraints.
- Hampered by other CAD vendors' licensing and activation technologies.
- DoubleCAD Pro's deployment saves installation and licensing headaches.
- Students can download free non-watermarked non-restricted copies for personal and business use.
I teach part-time at a local technical college, and so I know that easy deployment is a big deal for sites like these. While my students could get Autodesk software free from the the company's educational site, frequently they found it was limited to 30 days, because they could not get the 13-month license code that was apparently available. And they found the watermark annoying.
Like I said, deployment is a big deal at colleges.
In the end, it's the marketshare that determines the CAD vendor's attitude. Autodesk is huge, so they need to be restrictive; IMSI/design is small, so they have to be relaxitive.
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