Autodesk Labs Graduation versus Retirement Rates

Yesterday I blogged about the difference between when a technology preview graduates versus when it retires.

• Updated FAQ: What does it mean for a technology preview to graduate versus retire?

The Autodesk fiscal year runs from February 1 to January 31. So right now we are in FY16 that ends on January 31, 2016.

For this fiscal year we have had some retirements:

• Project Gaudi structural geometry generator and analysis engine for use as a Rhino plug-in
• Project Bluestreak AEC project management communication
• Item Number Resequencing for AutoCAD Electrical
• Project Energy Cost Range estimation service
• Project Rosenfeld for rapid energy analysis in the field

but many more graduates:

• Project AutoCASE for stormwater management
• Project Memento mesh fixing
• Project Commuter for InfraWorks 360
• FABmep Import for Revit MEP
• 2D to 3D Tool for Inventor 2015
• Project Octopus for Robot Structural Analysis Microsoft Excel integration
• Project Shapeshifter 3D modeling and 3D printing
• Project Green Stormwater Infrastructure
• Autodesk Innovation Genome
• Robot AdvanceSteel Link for Robot Structural Analysis and Advance Steel
• Autodesk Seek for Autodesk Revit

If you do the math, you can see that the graduation rate this year is 69%. Autodesk Labs has been in operation in earnest for 9 years (with FY16 still in progress).

Historically the graduation rate is 67%.

The Autodesk Labs Community consists of early adopters. These are people who are willing to learn and try new things. So while a 67% graduation rate provides a level of comfort to community members that if they bother to learn and try a new technology, there is a good chance it will not get killed — i.e., the rug being pulled out from under them so to speak — after they have spent so much time on it, it means Autodesk is not being bold enough. Perhaps the rate should be more like 50%? We need to try far-reaching things whose time may not yet have come. So I will be encouraging the divisions to use Autodesk Labs as a place to try their wildest ideas. We invite you to join us in this endeavor.

Our report card is alive in the lab.