AU2012: The Cloud and the Maker community

The message at this morning’s keynote at Autodesk University revolved around the cloud and the maker community. These two topics were big last year, but this year they dominated the discussions at the keynote, with guest speakers who are truly on the cutting edge of the maker community.

More Autodesk products are being moved to the cloud to facilitate ease in sharing and ability to store more data.

CEO Carl Bass says  “Cloud architecture is the biggest thing to happen to computing since the PC.”

Trends highlighted in yesterday’s Media Day included the following:

1) Consumerization of IT – technology used  to be consumed through large companies  then work its way down to consumers. Now technology is starting to be adopted by people in their personal lives.

2) Creativity and personalization of design – There is an emergence of the creative class, more who want to participate in the design process, and who want to create personalized stuff.

3) The return of making –Maker Faires and Techshop are enabling people to have access to manufacturing equipment, also the learning and sharing and networking with others.

The new products announcements have already hit the wire – mostly Autodesk 360 offerings and FormIt, a new SketchUp lookalike that is specific to Autodesk products and allows interaction with BIM.

Some of the core Autodesk 360 stuff is included for subscribers, for others you have to be using a suite. BIM 360 products you pay additionally for.

AU Virtual is available for those not in attendance to see happenings at the conference on video.http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=au_player

Tags: AEC, AU2012, Autodesk 360, Autodesk University, cloud, keynote, maker

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