Land Desktop’s Final Stand

Two roads diverged on a yellow truck,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

It’s been the announcement all of us in the civil engineering industry knew was coming, but we just didn’t know when. Today that announcement has come, and the roads have diverged; the king, Land Desktop has passed its crown to the new, more agile Civil 3D. In short, Land Desktop 2009 and Land Desktop Companion 2009 will respectively be the last version.

Each is expected to be available for subscription until the first week in July, and finally be removed from the price list by spring of 2009. Although the reign of Land Desktop has effectively ended, Autodesk plans to make Land Desktop available for download by subscription customers for as long as there is a sufficient demand.

If you so happen to be among the firms who still see Land Desktop as your primary design package, than the recent announcement by Engineered Efficiency may be of interest.  They just introduced a program where they will offer unlimited free training to their customers.  I must say, their offer is rather admirable as it’s a vast departure from the common reseller model of sell software, and then sell training.