Autodesk

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Autodesk

Basic information
Founded	1982
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Software
Official website	https://autodesk.com

Autodesk, Inc. is an American software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, who was a co-author of the first versions of AutoCAD.

Autodesk primarily develops and maintains computer-aided design (CAD) software used globally across many engineering and design industries. Autodesk's vast array of proprietary software allows their programs to interoperate, allowing for cloud-based building information management (BIM) collaboration between owners, architects, engineers, and contractors.

Modern versions of Autodesk Products, such as Inventor or AutoCAD, have been known to operate via always-online DRM, and have served to provide significant inconvenience for consumers if their internet goes out or their license verification servers are offline for maintenance

Consumer impact summary

User Freedom

Autodesk ceased to sell perpetual licenses for HSMWorks (2016) and will eliminate access altogether (2025–2028), rendering locally stored information unusable.

Future Fusion versions will lack support for Windows 10, with unclear consequences for existing installations.

Business Model

Transition from perpetual licenses to subscriptions (2016) and removal of legacy entitlements (e.g., HSMWorks from Fusion 360), in addition to the refusal to honor permanent licenses (e.g., Product Design Suite 2013).

User Privacy

Faulty piracy detection led to unjust fines and pressure to upgrade licenses.

Market Control

HSMWorks data incompatibility with supported products (Fusion 360/Inventor CAM) forces costly transitions.

Controversies

Controversy	Year	Background Info	Aftermath	Related Article	Related Video(s)
HSMWorks End of Life	2028	In 2012, Autodesk acquired HSMWorks, a computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) product for programming Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines, with the intention of integrating the technology into their own software and cloud services. HSMWorks could continue to be purchased with a perpetual license until 2016, when Autodesk announced that all Autodesk products, including HSMWorks, would transition to a subscription model, ending support and maintenance plans for perpertual licenses. In 2019, Autodesk transitioned HSMWorks subscribers to Fusion 360 subscribers with entitlement to download and use HSMWorks. In February 2025, Autodesk sent an email to Fusion 360 subscribers that HSMWorks entitlement would no longer be included on new subscriptions after March 25, 2025. and entitlement would end March 25, 2028 for all subscribers. "At that point you will no longer be able to download, access or use HSMWorks."	Projected aftermath: Because HSMWorks was subscription only, or entitlement through Fusion 360 subscription only, from 2016 onward, any person or organization who used up-to-date versions of HSMWorks since then will cease to have access to all data associated with HSMWorks, despite the data being locally stored and HSMWorks being installed (albiet unusable). HSMWorks data is not compatible with Fusion 360 nor Inventor CAM (products that share some technology with HSMWorks), thus no solution exists to bridge user's data to actively supported software.
Discontinuing Win 10 support	2026	In 2024, Autodesk announced that Autodesk Fusion would no-longer be supported for Windows 10 users after the start of January 2026. Stated in their support article, "Autodesk will no longer consider Windows 10 for Validation, bug fixing, and product support of future releases." The phrasing has rightfully baffled consumers and with a lack of elaboration from support teams, it is unknown whether or not existing installs will no-longer function, especially the line "existing installations cannot be repaired or reinstalled." is confusing and leaves questions open.	Discontinuation yet to occur	Autodesk Fusion ends support for Windows 10
Ending existing lifetime subscriptions	2023	Youtuber Ian Davis owned a permanent standalone license for Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate 2013 which failed to renew itself. Autodesk refused to issue a new license without an additional subscription purchase.	None		https://youtube.com/watch?v=OHY9K8X45XA
Telemetry bugs and harmful fines	2017	Consumers reported Autodesk's telemetry on paid versions of software detecting pirated versions of their software on PCs, and they explicitly send large fines as a punishment. This software has also been caught malfunctioning and Autodesk scaring consumers into purchasing expensive versions of their licenses.

Products

• AutoCAD - Autodesk's flagship CAD software, used for freeform 2D and 3D design.
• Revit - 3D design software that is primarily used by architects, engineers, and structural designers to design, draft, and model buildings and other structures.
• Autodesk Inventor - 3D digital modeling
• Autodesk Fusion - 3D digital modeling
• Civil 3D - 3D design focused on civil infrastructure
• 3ds Max - 3D Animation
• Maya - 3D Animation