Oddly, I didn't see anything from Autodesk but
Wired runs
a nice feature on the "then and now" of AutoCAD and CAD in general. Some of the passages can also be applied to our world of geospatial technology. I'll offer:
What AutoCAD did, if you look at a snapshot of the past 25 years, was really to democratize computer-aided drafting," says Mark Fritts, a senior manager at Autodesk and, prior to that, a licensed architect in California.
...
Before its commercial availability, computer-aided drafting (or design) was limited to massive corporations or large universities. Such software required not only huge amounts of computing power, but also large swaths of dedicated floor space to house the hulking machines needed to run it.
...
Interestingly, the software's main selling point today is the same today as it was the year of its birth: productivity. Whether used to design the tooling and instrumentation on Boeing airplanes or the aquatic O stage for Cirque du Soleil, AutoCAD continues to help designers and engineers complete complicated projects faster and with far fewer people.
