We have formed an AutoCAD solution team with 7 members and met in early November 2011 upon receiving the official appointment from Autodesk which is the vendor of AutoCAD and a thousand other products related to computer aided design and digital content creation.  The official appointment has given the solution team and Compucon channel access to 7 products which are otherwise inaccessible.  These 7 products include 4 standalone applications and 3 suites.  The standalone applications are AutoCAD, Raster Design, 3ds Max Design, and Alias Design.  The suites are AutoCAD Design Suite Standard, Premium, and Ultimate.  Prior to 1 November 2011, these 7 products were supplied through 5 CAD or media specialist system integrators exclusively for the New Zealand market.  AutoCAD licenses are region coded through an activation system and we are unable to import licenses even though parallel importing is legal from a government perspective. 

Members of the Compucon AutoCAD solution team have gone through 3 stages of efforts so far.  They expressed interest at our first AutoCAD introductory session which is part of the CPD seminar held at the end of August 2011.  They confirmed acceptance of the terms and conditions which are a subset of whatever Autodesk requires Compucon to accept.  They met further to go through the Autodesk eco-system and agreed on all team cooperative protocols in early November.  Members have yet to get certified by online learning and testing provided by Autodesk. 

We realise that not all Compucon peers are able to join seminars and meetings held in Albany due to the distance obstacle and time commitments.  We would not exclude any peer from the solution team but the steps described above are strictly necessary and there is a certain level of time commitment to be an AutoCAD solution team member.  In case any peer has customers wanting AutoCAD or the other 6 products, you can always purchase through Compucon and you will get a small feeder fee.

Each Autodesk 3D product that is available through Compucon has 9 options.  Altogether there are 63 prices from 7 products.  The full pricelist has been published on the website since 21 November 2011 as pat of the Solution System Group.  The pricelist looks unconventional and complicated. We have done our best to make the terminology as comprehensible as practical.  Please see http://www.compucon.co.nz/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,288/ and get us to explain further as needed.  You will find that the cheapest licence is close to $4K and the Ultimate Suite is over $11K.

There is one myth that we should touch on here.  Compucon and members of the AutoCAD solution team are not CAD specialists and we do not purport to be.  That is, we do not intend to teach a CAD operator how to run a CAD software package.  Our position is to supply a pre-installed and tested high performance Compucon Engineering or DesignStation inclusive of AutoCAD applications so that the end user will get a pleasant out of the box experience.  We have been testing computer system hardware on CAD applications and found 5 areas that would reduce system cost or boost performance.  Compucon New Zealand is most likely the only supplier providing this level of integrated service and benefits in New Zealand.  Nevertheless, customers can buy AutoCAD software without Compucon system hardware through Compucon.  There are 2 white papers that may give you a better understanding of the topic.  http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/view/1112/253/

CAD is a vertical application area and our current involvement is in 3D which is one step above 2D.  There is a gradient of specialisation in the 3D domain and our product set is considered the mainstream level.  We are not at a level of specialization such as offered by Revit, Inventor, Maya, factory and pipeline design etc.