Autodesk and Parallels, a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software, have jointly announced they have signed an agreement to make Parallels Desktop for Mac Autodesk’s preferred Mac virtualization software.
Earlier in the year Autodesk announced official support for the Mac via Apple’s Boot Camp software. Back in July Apple was pleased to hear Autodesk announce official support for supporting Windows-only Autodesk software via Apple’s Boot Camp technology which enables Macs to run Windows operating systems in a dual-boot configuration.
Support via Virtualization: Officially!
Now Autodesk officially extends Mac support beyond Boot Camp embracing the Mac with Parallels Desktop for Mac. The design software giant will officially support AutoCAD software, AutoCAD LT, Autodesk Inventor Professional, Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Revit.
According to information that Architosh has obtained, Autodesk Revit is the most popular Autodesk application running on Apple hardware.
“Autodesk customers are increasingly working with both Mac and Windows, and have asked us to support Mac virtualization,” said Chris Bradshaw, Autodesk chief marketing officer. “Today we are pleased to welcome Parallels as a partner and Parallels Desktop as our preferred Mac virtualization software.” “This is the latest step in Autodesk’s ongoing efforts to support our customers on the Mac, who will now be able to use some of our most popular 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software alongside Mac OS X, in addition to the five native Mac applications we currently offer.”
Actually, the number of native Mac applications exceeds five. This new or updated web page on Autodesk’s site lists a total of nine native Mac applications spanning 3D and design, engineering, and film and media. They also include items like Autodesk Combustion and Autodesk Alias software, in addition to the five mentioned by Chris Bradshaw.
Parallels Continues to Open Up the Mac World
As expected for quite some time, Parallels and its virtualization technology are key enablers for Windows developers to segue over to Mac support and eventually Mac development. That is a process that is underway not just at Autodesk but in many software companies.
“Parallels Desktop for Mac enables over two million users to run Windows-based applications seamlessly and simply on their Mac,” said Serguei Beloussov, chief executive officer of Parallels. “Autodesk has a long history of creating innovative and industry-leading software for design, engineering and entertainment, and we’ve heard many requests from customers interested in using their Autodesk applications with Parallels. We are delighted to partner with Autodesk to help make this software more broadly available to the Mac community.”
Reader Comments
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AutoCad; Wow! After 25 years they finally take the Mac seriously, what a giant step. In the meantime, there are Mac software programs that do all and more do-able by AutoCad. And for far less money too. This is really news…
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Virtualization is NOT Mac support, it’s a marketing ploy.
Like it’s Windows master, AutoCAD is a bloated, counter-intuitive, over-priced mess. They can keep it. There are far better CAD applications on the Mac.
If AutoDesk REALLY wants to support the Macintosh (and every other CAD application on the planet) they should play like good citizens and publish the ENTIRE file format specifications for DXF, DWG and DWF!
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Using windows on mac is totally pointless. Autodesk should make native mac software.
Any progress toward mac by AutoDesk is great. Forget comparing other mac cad programs to AutoCad, what we need is Revit for mac. BIM is the future, get with it. In the meantime, Revit on vmware works for me.
It’s great to hear that AutoCAD is doing this. I am not certain why they didn’t include support for VMware Fusion as well since that has worked for my son in the past with AutoCAD.
but perhaps he should switch to Parallels based on the following:
My son is a second year architecture student at Pratt Institute.
He has a 17-inch MacBook Pro (2.5 Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT w/ 512MB of VRAM).
Last year he used VMware Fusion 2.0 running Windows Vista with AutoCAD 2009 installed. He had no problems with this set up and was able to use AutoCAD, Rhino 3D and other PC software in the Windows Virtual Machine.
His 13-month license ran out and we downloaded a legitimate FREE education copy of AutoCAD 2010 from Autodesk and using a legitimate software license and activation codes from Autodesk for the student version installed it on his Vista virtual machine on his MacBook Pro. First it wouldn’t run because we need to install updates to Vista which we did. We created an entirely new Virtual Machine on his Mac and installed Vista with SP1, SP2 and all the latest updates. We installed AutoCAD 2010. It would not run. – It would launch, we would get the initial AutoCAD splash screen and then it would slow down and not respond when it got to the default drawing template. The mouse would disappear, reappear and if clicked a message would pop up noting that the AutoCAD was not responding.
We upgraded to VMware Fusion 3.0. We upgraded to Windows 7 and it installed well. Everything seemed to work well. Then we downloaded and launched AutoCAD 2010. Still doesn’t work. It hangs up and does not respond.
I have done safe boots of the virtual machine but that does not work either. I have adjusted the display resolution but that doesn’t work. Other programs such as Rhino 3D work fine and are very speedy. No problems.
AutoCAD 2010 does not work!!!
I have reinstalled Windows 7 and I have reinstalled AutoCAD 2010 several times and it still doesn’t work.
My virtual machine in Fusion is set up as follows:
Processors: 1 processor core (although I have tried 2 also)
RAM: 2.024 GB
Display: accelerate 3D graphics is enabled – Direct 9.0X with Aero
Sharing: One shared folder
Printers Enabled: match default
Auto Protect: disabled
Network: NAT
Hard Drive: SCSI 40GB
CD/DVD: Auto Detect
Sound: Connected
USB Devices: N/A (USB 2.0 enabled & Auto connect on)
Other Devices: Serial Port Printer on
I am currently trying to get a license for AutoCAD 2009 but I am wondering if that will work.
Any ideas here??? Anyone you can refer me to?
Is it Fusion? Is it something that I need to disable or enable in Windows? Should I not expect it to work well? As mentioned the 2009 version of AutoCAD worked well but 2010 we can’t get to install.
I can’t believe that I can’t get AutoCAD 2010 to work on this MacBook Pro. (should I wonder if AutoCAD has made installations on Fusion problematic since they are now partnered with Parallels?)
Thanks
Help!
I am having what seems like the exact same problem. I have a registered new Autocad light 2010, windows 7, vmware fusion, AND a macbook pro (intel processor) I’m desperately trying to figure out where to turn for help? Autodesk? Vmfusion? mac? windows? Please let me know if you are able to fix this (and it is not from a current post) I feel your pain!
I have also tried 1 and 2 cores (2 was much worse)
Thanks
Robin
As a Motionbuilder user, I’m pretty disappointed that version 2008 was the last released for Mac.
Version 2010 (win only) has great new features, but Autodesk continues to ignore the Mobu mac community.
As for Maya, the mac version crawls compared to the Win/Linux counterparts.
embrace my a**
I share your frustration and disappointment. MotionBuilder from Kaydara was a superb product and the original developer stood by the Mac in a big way saying it was the future of great 3D. I don’t know why Autodesk is ignoring the Mac MotionBuilder audience. I wish I did….
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