Who is Using Wikipedia to Promote Autodesk Inventor?

A few days ago while browsing Wikipedia searching for information I landed on the Autodesk Inventor page.

not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style

Going through the text I was surprised when I found a series of statements that looked as though they have been written by a marketing department. I don't think people at Autodesk (ADSK) are approaching Wikipedia the way Microsoft did (paying a blogger to edit a page). An Inventor fan must have done the editing. When I discovered the page, there were a few statements like:

… Inventor is based on newer, more advanced parametric modeling techniques… Inventor takes these concepts to the next level …

Well, not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style, I would say. And again:

Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has been developed using a newer technology-base to allow for unique innovations.

What is acceptable for a product brochure is not obviously good for an encyclopedia.

After the discovery, as a Wikipedia member, I cleaned up the page and removed the boldest marketing statements. Thanks to the Wikipedia revision history system, you still can see the original version of the page.

Also, using information from Wikipedia I was able to trace back to the anonymous author of the marketing statements. On February 16, 2007 the mysterious author edited the Inventor page from a computer in Brunswick or Cleveland, OH. Interestingly enough, this is the only contribution of that user to Wikipedia.

Franco Folini