New ACAD LT licenses needed . . .

Hi,

I am not sure if this is allowed on here, applogies if its not, please freeze the thread...

The company I work for are after buying some new ACAD licences and have, so far, had a quote of £5000 for 5 ACAD LT 2009 licences (or £1120 each).

My question is, are there any cheaper alternatives such as ACAD LT 2010? Full ACAD/LT packages available?

Previously one of the directors has just googled ACAD and buys the cheapest he can find, this is a possibility but I thought I would try the community first for some advice and posible outlets to buy from. Please feel free to throw some comments my way.

Thanks in advance

Dave

The price of Autocad, full or LT is set by Autodesk in general. If you find it anywhere any cheaper then the likelihood is that it will not be a legal licensed product; and you may therefore be at the mercy of Autodesk finding out, and taking you to court to recoup their 'losses'

I thought AutoCAD LT was free?

It's a pricey product AutoCAD, but if you need it then you need it. There's not really a cheap way of going about it. Unless it 'fell off the back of a lorry' :glare:

Z

http://www.novedge.com/Start_Design.asp

This is where I have been getting my programs from. They are easy to deal with and no problems with the license's.

I am just a happy customer for them.

If all you need is LT I would really have a look at some of the AutoCAD LT clones out there. Have a real good look at DoubleCAD XT.

http://www.doublecad.com/Products/DoubleCADXT/tabid/1100/Default.aspx

Oh it's free BTW while the Pro version is around $700 USD. Worth a look.

That DoubleCAD looks interesting, going to give it a whirl and see what comes, I remain sceptical though, maybe I will be pleasantly suprised, either way many thanks for your help!

Dave

That DoubleCAD looks interesting, going to give it a whirl and see what comes, I remain sceptical though, maybe I will be pleasantly suprised, either way many thanks for your help!

 

Dave

You should be surprised. I gave it a try and found it very workable and am VERY loyal to AutoCAD. If I need a copy of LT I would probably go with the XT CAD.

That DoubleCAD looks interesting, going to give it a whirl and see what comes, I remain sceptical though, maybe I will be pleasantly suprised, either way many thanks for your help!

 

Dave

Dave,

I have tried pretty much all the intellicad clones and I have found 2 which where quite excellent, but they have to be paid for! quite cheap though!!!

BricsCAD v9 from Belgium & GStarCAD 2009 from China, they both work excellent just as AutoCAD does. The text import works 100% and they both have page setup's in paper space "which for me is a must" GStar I think had the slight edge as far as software bling as it has a tool palette where BricsCAD doesn't, but GStars licence means if you upgrade your hardware after 12 months "as most people will do" you have to "BUY" a new activation code, or buy a $100 dongle... oh, and you do get the odd "text glitch/odd funny character" with GStar on pop up messages. Visulaly for me BricsCAD is better. You can download 30 day trials of the software. Links below.

GStarCAD costs £347

http://www.staricad.com/AutoCAD_Design/AutoCAD_infor/Buy_1716895144.html

BricsCAD costs £326 inc 21% Belgium VAT, or VAT free (£270) if you give them your VAT number while buying.

https://www.bricsys.com/en_GB/index.jsp

Both these versions I used where the "Standard" versions. But as good as they where I just can't use them as I need to use Dynamic Blocks and no intellicad clone has come anywhere near this "as far as I know?" (please correct me if I'm wrong) and I will have a serious look at it...

P.S. Both titles above are also 3D and runs Lisps + more. So apart from the dynamic blocks they are a much better alternative than LT.

Gaz...

Sorry to revamp this thread but the question of new licenses has reared its head again (nothing moves very fast over here). The director wants to know why ACAD 2010 LT is cheaper than ACAD 2009 LT, he never told me how much by but he wants to know if there are any contra-indications due to this ie: less functionality, compatiability issues etc

Does anyone know why this is and furthermore which one is better 2009 or 2010? I gave up asking for full ACAD so I guess this is the second best option.

Thanks for your opinions.

Dave

It might be cheaper solely due to the state of the economy.

And never go backwards. Get the very latest version you can afford.

BTW...2010 does not have less functionality than 2009. What was your boss smoking when he asked that question?

I have been through the same process and GstarCAD 2009 Pro definetly comes at the top of the list by far. I have used GstarCAD in anger and have only found one major glitch for me....when working in 3D models [DWG 17+Mb] if I do a hide it freezes my machine completely. Reboot required. Having said that I wouldnt go back to LT and I hear GstarCAD 2010 Pro is about to be released very soon. Hopefully soon it will incorporate a facility to load point cloud data like the new AutoCAD 2011.

Novedge (link above) shows Autocad LT 2011 for $1140. You might get it cheaper with the multiple licenses.