I have found them to be essentially identical programs. One thing that seems to be important to industry is that Inventor includes AutoCAD for free. Many businesses are just starting to move into 3D. Out of our graduates about 50% get jobs doing 2D AutoCAD and about 50% doing 3D split about evenly between Inventor and SolidWorks with a few working in AutoCAD, Pro/E and others.
Many of the early 3D hires went to companies switching from CADKey or Pro/E to SolidWorks. Now it seems the majority are AutoCAD switching to Inventor.
Students can download Autodesk Inventor Professional for free from
http://engineersrule.org or
http://firstbase.autodesk.com
Others can download Inventor LT for free from
http://labs/autodesk.com Inventor LT is limited to single part - no assembly modeling.
I think resellers for both companies offer personal learning editions for free. Not sure about current availability.
Check out the company help forums for valuable help.
http://discussion.autodesk.com/forum.jspa?forumID=78
http://forum.solidworks.com/
You might also look at certification in the future
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...linkID=9242016
http://www.solidworks.biz/pages/serv...ning/CSWA.html
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/serv...ning/CSWP.html
Also check out
http://www.daratech.com for information chart on the market capitalization of the mcad companies.
Autodesk sells Inventor
Dassault sells SolidWorks
Parametric Technologies sells Pro/E Wildfire
___________
J.D. Mather
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/content..._Tutorials.htm