CAD on a Mac

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Al, this is a history of many Mac applications, and is certainly not restricted to CAD. But if you are suggesting that Sanddrag switch platforms to conform to what "big business" does, I disagree.

Bill,
I fight this battle everyday with the host of applications that are available in broadcasting. Unfortunately, this is an end user battle. It is not what platform is best, it is what platform will produce the best return for our software development. Autodesk supported both platforms at one time (a long time ago) but found that there was not the return in sales for the Mac software. So the question still remains as to which platform one should choose based on CAD software (Autodesk), database apps, dedicated control software, etc. For Autodesk products that is a Windows based OS. We do have a variety of Mac machines here running primarily graphics generation software. This is not because the Macs are better at it (an argument for a different day) but simply because the software is written for Mac OS. Those in the graphics world know that artists prefer the Mac (and therefore a significant customer base already exists) and so target that market. Many of the apps that were traditionally Mac based are now written for both platforms. Photoshop (Adobe family) is one of these and Protools (audio workstation) is another. However, even Protools is sliding in the Mac forum and support for raid editing systems is not available to Mac users at the present time.
At the recent Inventor training I attended, the instructor told us that applications are migrating to the intensive use of video cards and a future (1-2 years) "hot" setup will use dual monitors driven by video cards costing up to $10K or $15K each. Again those developers may choose to support only Windows users and Mac people will be left out in the cold.