Autodesk Announces Expanded Support for Mac Users via Boot Camp

No, not that kind of Boot Camp.

Senior Public Relations Manager, Noah Cole, shared some interesting news with Autodesk bloggers,

Autodesk is now officially supporting Apple Boot Camp, a component of the Mac OSX operating system that enables customers to run Windows on their Apple Hardware, for users of AutoCAD 2010 software, 3ds Max 2010 software, 3ds Max Design 2010 software, Autodesk Inventor 2010 software, Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 software, Autodesk Revit Structure 2010 software and Autodesk Revit MEP 2010 software. A growing number of Autodesk customers are working in environments with Apple hardware and have requested support from Autodesk to use our design and engineering applications on that platform. With Autodesk support for Boot Camp, customers can now run their favorite Mac applications and Autodesk applications on the same computer. This will also enable customers to run Autodesk applications at full speed on a Mac and leverage its native graphics capabilities. We know some customers have been successfully running their Autodesk software under Boot Camp for years, so we’re pleased to finally offer official support. See www.autodesk.com/mac for more details.

Boot Camp is a utility included with Mac OS X v10.5 (aka “Leopard”) that allows users to run Windows-based applications on their Macs. Users can run their Windows applications at native speed with full access to the Mac hardware processors, accelerated 3D graphics, and I/O connections. Users need to have an Intel-based Mac (ex: MacBook Pro, Mac Pro), Mac OS X Leopard, and a copy of the Windows OS (Windows XP 32 or Vista 32/64).

At this time Autodesk support for users on Apple hardware for these products is limited to Windows versions of these applications running via Boot Camp. In contrast, Autodesk currently offers seven native OS X Applications: The Alias family of products, Sketchbook Pro, Maya, Mudbox, Toxik, ImageModeler, and Stitcher. Autodesk is currently working to extend support for the same products currently supported via Boot Camp to a virtualization environment. This will enable users to operate their Autodesk applications alongside their Mac applications without requiring a reboot of their computer. We are considering a technology preview of a virtualization environment via Autodesk Labs.