Thanks, it looks like a very viable alternative to Autocad. I would however, like to see Solid Works ported over to the mac. I understand at the beginning of this year there was a mac version (beta?) exhibited?

That's not what I read. But Dassault are being really coy. You have to remember, Autodesk and Dassault are arch business enemies. I'm still really pleased with Autodesk making this announcement, Dassault on the other hand are probably too frightened of their shareholders and are waiting to see how successful ACAD Mac will be. This is common business practice.

I know that Moog Music did exactly the same thing to a small British company who made an electronic musical instrument called a Theremin. Moog said that the Theremin wouldn't be popular again, and they were wrong. Moog watched how Longwave Instruments shot to glory, before killing that company by bringing their own version out. Moog Music as you are probably aware, are very famous, and before making modular synthesizers, made a cheaper alternative to the $10,000 RCA Theremin in the 1960's.

Tom

Not disagreeing, but another glitch on the road to an OSX version is that DSS is rumored to be pushing SW to their CATIA CGM kernel, so that SW can stop paying money to Siemens for Parasolids, and get full compatibility between its enterprise oriented CATIA and smaller and midsized business SW.

I would give best odds on Autodesk coming out with a native Inventor before we see a native SW. For all practical purposes, Autodesk owns all of the technology that they use, including Algor and MoldFlow simulation, the kernel, drafting (AutoCAD), and rendering. This reduces the risk of a software component supplier holding them up. That and Autodesk's commitment to OSX animation and film production, and Sketchbook on iPad.

Autodesk gets Mac.

the other tom

They've also announced Catia Live Building recently to take on Revit. It'll be interesting to see what impact that makes on Autodesks grip on the AEC market.

LOL!

In middle school, i decided to put a twist on "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" with "I'll show you yours if you show me mine", hehehe.

I wonder if the two companies will have the sp(l)ines to show each other's each other's....

I just [URL="http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/"]downloaded[/URL] the beta, and promptly deleted it.
It requires X11 to run, so is not a true OS X app.

To quote [URL="http://developer.apple.com/opensource/tools/x11.html"]Apples web site[/URL]:

X11 for Mac OS X is an implementation of the X Window System that makes it possible to run X11-based applications in Mac OS X. Based on the X.org Foundation releases -- the leading reference implementation of X11

Its a way to get programs that were written for Unix to run on OS X without having to re-write the interface sections. Siemens NX also requires X11 as do programs like the Gimp Open Source image editor.

Anayway, I think this type of free apps. aren't for us. Definitely, shark 2D is a big step over!