The newest Mac CAD product offers AutoCAD-compatibility at an introductory price of $495.

Today German software developer Graebert GmbH launches ARES Commander Edition 1.0 for Mac, a completely new piece of 2D/3D CAD software. Earlier this year Graebert introduced versions of ARES for Windows and Linux.

The new product is now shipping at an introductory price of $495 through the end of September, a 50% discount from the regular price of $995.

Graebert says Mac ARES Commander uses a native OS X user interface without emulation. ARES thus runs native on across Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Linux—a feat that, to our knowledge, only Siemens PLM duplicates with NX. The company claims Apple iPad support is also under “active investigation.”

Autodesk is widely rumored to be in the final stages of developing a native Mac version of AutoCAD, but is not commenting.

Graebert has been developing CAD and related software for more than 30 years. Most of their previous products were based on the IntelliCAD engine, which traces its history to the 1980s. The newer ARES Commander products are based on libraries from the Open Design Alliance. The ARES technology is also behind the recent free DraftSight CAD software released by Dassault Systemes, also promoted as an alternative to AutoCAD.

Graebert was responding to overwhelming pent-up demand for a native Mac CAD product, says CEO Wilfried Graebert. “We had thousands of requests by users wanting to be part of our initial Beta test process. The announcement a few weeks ago of extremely powerful new Mac Pro systems only emphasizes that Apple has a great platform for high-end computing.”

A free 30-day trial of ARES Commander Edition for Mac OS X may be downloaded at www.graebert.com. Minimum system requirements for the Mac version of ARES Commander are an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5.8 or above.

Graebert says it is seeking resellers for the product.