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Following the release of the Autodesk 2009 family of products in March 2008, Autodesk are announcing the retirement of AutoCAD 2006 and Autodesk 2006-based products. Since Autodesk released AutoCAD 2006, they have subsequently released AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2008, and AutoCAD 2009 together with a complete family of products compatible with these releases. We believe that upgrading to the current release will more than pay for itself in the productivity gains you can achieve.

What does the retirement mean to me?

Autodesk will stop selling upgrades and crossgrades from Autodesk 2006 products after March 13, 2009. That means
upgrade pricing will no longer be available and Autodesk will no longer provide technical support, except for existing
maintenance patches that are downloadable from www.autodesk.com.
 

What products will be retired?

The following Autodesk products will be retired on March 13, 2009:
Platform Technology
AutoCAD LT® 2006
AutoCAD® 2006
Autodesk Map 3D® 2006
Autodesk® Raster Design 2006
AEC Solutions
Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 2006
Autodesk® Land Desktop 2006
Manufacturing Solutions
AutoCAD® Mechanical 2006
AutoCAD® Electrical 2006
Autodesk Inventor® Series 10
Media and Entertainment
Autodesk® VIZ 2006
Autodesk® 3ds Max® 8

Why is Autodesk retiring these releases?

Autodesk is continually adding new functionality to our software products. Many of the new and improved features are based on feedback from customers who are faced with increasing pressure to get more done in less time. Customers who have already moved to the latest releases say these time-saving tools are worth the cost of upgrading and help them stay ahead of the competition. One challenge of keeping up with customer demand is the cost associated with supporting older releases. So, like many other software companies, Autodesk has a policy of supporting products two releases back from the currently shipping release of that product. This policy enables Autodesk to control the costs of maintaining older versions of our software, which in turn helps keep down the price to purchase new Autodesk software.