Autodesk 360: 'democratized' design tools over the Web

Design software provider Autodesk announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its toolsets and adding automated workflows for building, entertainment, engineering, construction, infrastructure, product, plant and factory design. The new design suites also connects the user's desktop to Autodesk 360, a cloud computing platform that enables customers to store, edit and share their designs from anywhere.

It's a move toward more "democratized" software, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass told a group of reporters at the company's San Francisco gallery. He noted that small, mobile devices are becoming more and more capable of handling serious tasks and that the days of having to wait until one gets to his or her office to do work are over. He also called the cloud an "infinitely scalable resource," reports ReadWriteCloud.

While most designers still do most designing while at their office desktops, the move toward cloud-based software is making it easier to access their work remotely. As workspaces continue to evolve and more employers become comfortable with virtual, shared and remote working configurations, this will become increasingly important to the speed and flexibility with which serious design work can be carried out on Autodesk products.

Autodesk 360 is really just a new and improved version of the company's cloud-based Autodesk Cloud product, which it released last year. Comparatively, Autodesk 360 has cloud-based featured for Autodesk Subscription customers, including additional cloud storage and the ability to access cloud services for rendering, simulation, design optimization and energy analysis. Subscribers now have up to 25 MB of storage and between 100 and 500 Autodesk Cloud Units per user, based on the suite edition they purchased.

Image: Autodesk software running on an iPad Flickr/betsyweber

Via: ReadWriteCloud and Autodesk

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com