DS releases V6 kernel through Spatial
Spatial has for years been the developer and licensor of the ACIS geometry kernel, which has been used in some low-end 3D modelers. Spatial has for the last several years been owned by Dassault Systemmes. The geometry kernel used by Catia is called CGM (convergence geometric modeler). In a press release dated June 29, 2011, Spatial is handling the public offering of the CGM kernel for use in any developer’s CAD system. So while DS has been very close to the chest with their kernel since it mattered to anyone (SolidWorks users anyway), now that SolidWorks will get to use it, it will also be available to anyone.
The most exciting news in the press release is that it offers “Native B-rep Interoperability with Dassault Systèmes V5: preserves full geometric and topological integrity”, which means V6-based modelers will be able to strip out the kernel geometry from V5 models, but not the feature history. The press release also talks about the “future delivery” of multi-processing and polygonal modeling.
If you have any interest in compatibility with V5 – V6, you should read the press release. It is full of marketing double-speak, so you can’t get anything specific from it, but you can see cues about various types of technology and possible directions.
What does this mean for SolidWorks users? Add-on products will have an easier time of it, and other CAD products based on CGM will be more likely to exist. SolidWorks benefitted greatly from being on a common kernel (Parasolid) with other products such as NX, Solid Edge, Mastercam, and others. This might be the motivation for trying to open up the CGM kernel to the CAD market in general.
Switching kernels, as SolidWorks users are preparing to find out, is a painful experience. The press release seems to be aimed at new development rather than at converting existing CAD products. “These products provide not only an excellent opportunity for independent software vendors developing next generation applications…”
Here’s the original article that talks about Adobe’s response:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10028706-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Cnet has an article on the website dearadobe.com
http://dearadobe.com/index.php?gripeID=161
It might be interesting to leverage aspects of this model, such as the name of the website and the fact that the complaints are “bite-size”, if you know what I mean. Just a thought…
A few examples that could easily apply to SolidWorks:
*Please fix your update system. I am tired of constant requests to run patches that won’t install. Acrobat is a f^cking nightmare.
*Why does Photoshop cost as much as a pre-owned small car? Drop the price please!!
*Please create an installer that puts your software on my computer in less time than it takes to install an operating system.
* Stop adding features. Focus on stability, speed and removing bloat.
I can’t agree more with everything you’ve written in this post Matt. Solidworks needs to take a good hard look at its business model.
The company I work for is in the predicament where we can’t upgrade from 2007 due to a bug which is either in our PDMWorks Vault or in the PDMWorks software (this is a debatable issue, but somewhat irrelevant). As a result of this we’ve now been paying maintenance on half a dozen seats for a year and a bit… and for what? To have our VAR scratch their heads and escalate the issue to Solidworks in Concord to have a look at. 4 months later we’re no closer to resolving the issue, although the silver lining is that we haven’t had to deal with the bugs in 2008. Still, the fact remains that we’re paying for upgrades we can’t use as the software prevent us, and the support (which we’re also paying for) isn’t able to sort out our problem. All in all it makes for quite the disgruntled Solidworks users.
As fate would have it, about a year ago we looked into switching to another CAD package and decided to remain with Solidworks due to the years of legacy data we have invested in sldprts and the like. Had we have known the downtime to be suffered later, the outcome might not have been quite the same.
Chalk up another user rapidly losing faith in the Solidworks juggernaut and eagerly awaiting some reform.
I guess I’ll come out of hiding. I’ve been reading most of this and up until this post, didn’t feel too compelled to comment. I wanted to say something regarding the resellers since I’m one of them (even if I was a good guy – thank you again). I’ve been at my company for over 11 years supporting, training and presenting various products so I’m well aware of how different models of tech support work. I wish I knew how other resellers handled their tech support because that is one area that I take great pride in and make sure my other AEs pay close attention to. I don’t know which model would work, but I do agree that flexibility is needed. I have large and small customers that call infrequently and others who I have on speed dial. Do they all complain about paying their maintenance – rarely. Some do, of course, but most do not. Then again, I want to give them good service, I want to help them be productive, I want to see their large assemblies open without problems. I wouldn’t have a problem charging a separate fee for support if they want it because I know that I can provide it. I think that until you have support staff (be it forums, resellers or SolidWorks Corp) that are passionate about this product, you will never get high quality support. For customer service to work, the support staff has to want to be helpful. Sales people get paid commission, support staff don’t so we need a different incentive to work. There are plenty at SolidWorks that love the product and I’m glad I get to work with them, yet there are other resellers who I’m sure are sub-par. The forums are a quick, great place the get info. I’ve used the SolidWorks and a few others to great success for information – and most are FREEEE.
Either way, maybe a change is due. There’s nothing wrong with it and hopefully SolidWorks will do the right thing. As far as SolidWorks Corp. goes, I do have to say that they are by far one of the best vendors I’ve had the opportunity to work with (and there have been many), so it could be worse. Best of luck with the mission here.
Another problem with the subscription service is that is almost certainly precludes the single user. I own a copy of AutoCAD, though severly outdated. I would never consider buying SolidWorks for myself, unless I was a full time consultant. I would basically working as a slave for SolidWorks for the first two jobs I do each year just to break even with the cost of SW and its subscription servies. There’s a lot of companies that black and gray market SW, or just stopped supporting it because of the expense. I think they are actually losing out on money-making opportunities with the current scheme.
Matt, thanks for being our champion. I am disgusted with SolidWorks, and our company is about to switch to another CAD system due to all the SolidWorks software bugs, lack of concern for its long-time customers, and its coveting of filthy lucre. It takes SO LONG to install or re-install software every 4-6 months! We can’t afford the loss in productivity that SolidWorks GUARANTEES (do you hear us, SolidWorks?). It’s a shame that SW is such a greedy company. I fell for all the romance at the last 2 SolidWorks World conferences and also at some user group meetings. It’s so sad to see the USERS passionate about such buggy software, and SolidWorks looks you straight in the eye and says they are all about the customer. Now, if I go to SWW in Orlando, I’ll be going with that sick feeling of “what a bunch of liars” when I see the SW staff on stage. But I probably won’t go to SWW in Orlando if we switch CAD systems. Why can’t they stand on the stage and be big enough to admit that SW2008 was a disaster (don’t use those politically correct words that we can all see through). Stand up like a man, SolidWorks, and admit your mistakes, then send all us long-time users something REAL for our having to put up with your crappy software. Service packs are a waste of time and an oxymoron. I echo what everyone else has written here. For every one of us, there are thousands more that agree with us but won’t write. They’re too busy rebooting their crashed SolidWorks to have time to read, much less write, on a blog. SolidWorks needs to stop raping us and start romancing and respecting us. I thought Jeff Ray would be that kind of guy. Let’s see what he does. We don’t want or need any more “explanations.” That will only make us angrier. We know what’s fair, and SolidWorks is not fair. Thanks again, Matt, Devon, and others who respectfully try continually to get SolidWorks’ attention. But it could be too late: the focus on the almighty corporate dollar is about to sink another ship.
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Yikes!
Yeah, you’re right. Sorry to see you go if you decide to jump, but if you do, please tell us if the grass is any greener!
SolidWorks as a company seems to think that they are too big to fail. Pissing off your old or small customers with penalties is not a good marketing strategy. Charging extra for services not rendered is a turn off. Clearly customer satisfaction is not a priority.
Solidworks has some serious problems: buggy software, poor choice of new features, degrading documentaion, difficult installation, and a nasty attidude about users. Still it is a useful tool, but the value is declining.
Hmmm, sounds like this whole ordeal is even reaching other CAD vendors. Just got an email newsletter from Bob-CAD, with the following wording:
“Why the competition hates:
*Low Price
*NO Maintenance Fees
*Our Power
*FREE Post Processors
For years you’ve been told you need to spend crazy amounts of money on a cad/cam system. In fact, the only person that thinks you should still spend thousands on a cad/cam system is the guy trying to sell it to you.
More and more companies are
switching to BobCAD-CAM everyday”
Seems like them and probably others will be trying to woo potential customers by focusing on where it hurts the most. Interesting stuff.
Hey Matt,
The delay in posting comments was mainly to build up confidence that I could post without outing myself or my VAR. If I was not anonymous then I would most likely feel like a marshmellow on the end of stick….
I agree with most of what you have under the “How Much?” section. Apart from service packs being free the first year and the no tech upgrade fee being a flat $1000 this is pretty much how things have been before the change.
One of SW policies has been that each area has at least two resellers. (I think they want to avoid the PTC/Rand issue.) The problem is that not all resellers can or should survive. I know that in my area that our junior person has years of actual non-VAR work experience ahead of the other Var’s “senior” AE. I know that SW has put a ‘freeze’ on accout change requests to us in an effort to stop the bleeding.
I just am not sure why SW is changing this policy. I cannot see the change making a great deal of money for SW and I can only expect it to hurt our bottom line. With the new policy it is cheaper to buy a new licence every three years than to return to maintenance. Many of our smaller customers choose not to be on maintenance intiallly (budget, do not feel the need…), many of these have come onto maintenance after a year or two. This new policy acts only as a discouragment to that.
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Well, you’re not really anonymous, I know who you are, but based on the fact that you think you’re out on a limb, I won’t out you. Funny thing is I know another guy with the same name.
Anyway, my area only has a single reseller, but my reseller does have competition in other areas. I can say without a doubt that the lack of competition makes vars lazy, just like the rest of us.
This is how I see it right now. If ‘we’ don’t aggressively pursue this and make sure SW is hearing us this is what is going to happen. They will let us rant and then wait for the fire to die down and push it under the carpet. I will guarantee this will happen if ‘we’ as a community do not go much further than this at Matt’s Blog. No offence Matt, you do have considerable voice in the SW community and have picked up the gauntlet for us several times, but I think we need to form you a army and get you a megaphone.
I do have a suggestion though to keep this and the documentation in the for front.
Recently here in Canada there was a revolt against one of the cell phone companies Rogers, the only company offering the iPhone (Yes to those detail oriented people out there there is Fido as well offering iPhones but they are a company under the Rogers umbrella) the rates that they offered were some of the highest in the world and there were a lot of pissed off techi Canadians. So a website sprung up called http://www.ruinediphone.com/ . This site in a matter of a few weeks got 60 000 signatures in protest , major national and international press, and gave Rogers one huge black eye. They caved and changed the plans before they even received the petition. They finally offered a decent data plan at a somewhat affordable cost. Still the cost of a cell in Canada sucks but this is proof that if as a community we stand up and tell them ‘We cannot accept your business decision on this’ and make it as public as possible, and garner enough support from users that change can and will happen.
So basically what I am saying is that I agree with all of this and support what Matt has started 100% but have a sneaky suspicion that nothing will become of this unless we band together and tell SW, that this is unacceptable. Nothing will come of all the work Matt has put forward into this argument or other arguments such as the documentation problem toward SW. Lets not put all this effort to waste. I can offer a website, domain, and maintenance (For Free 🙂 ) of this website to take this and other complaints to SW.
Ben
I can forsee Matt firing up SolidWorks and as it pings the mothership he gets a “your license has been revoked” message. I can also forsee Matt pumping a fist in the air and saying, “YES!”
I’m glad to see things such as Maintenance and Documentation being pointed out. I’m also glad to see that a few SolidWorks and VAR employees are reading. And I certainly hope that the efforts of the users bringing these issues to the fore are actually heard. I don’t think Mr. Welch is going to be the one to actually listen and make changes. He obviously has his own agenda. The groomed PR response was a bit disappointing, to say the least. But, I don’t think we should expect a “OK guys. I went ahead and changed maintenance to a tiered structure. You bloggers and posters that contributed to recognizing and offering suggestions on these issues get free lifetime maintenance (or at least a t-shirt) for your troubles. Oh and I got a team together to begin writing a 3 volume User reference guide with pictures that will be incorporated into online help. I appreciate the time and effort you guys are putting in to help us out and if there’s anything else I can do to make SolidWorks the best, let me know.”
Though, Mr. Welch, if you are reading, is exactly what we, and don’t assume its just a handful poting to this blog, want.
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Great comment! I like the way you think!
“It turns out that if you want to skip a year of maintenance (support and new versions), it winds up costing you more money than if you stay on maintenance.”
Huh? Subscription costs $1295 – $1995 per year, depending on the product. The “reinstallation” fee is $850 per year = 34-57& LESS than the cost of subscription.
PTC, UG and Autodesk have MUCH higher penalties associated with lapsed maintenance. With PTC and UG you have to backpay to the expiration date PLUS pay a 25% penalty. With Autodesk, you have to pay exorbitant upgrade fees plus the cost of maintenance. If you fall more than two releases behind, you can no longer upgrade.
Debate the new policies, but start with the facts – not hysterics.
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ok… my apologies, turns out I had the penalties stuff wrong… see post on the topic.
Nice job Matt.It’s funny,i haven’t heard from my VAR in some time until yesterday.They called and asked how things were going!Asked me if i had any tech. problems!!Oh yeah,as a side note,wanted to remind of 2009 roll-out event,Which i had already registered for.Timing seemed a little strange to me.
Matt: You started a thought with your reply to Chawnskie, post #6. I’m sure that SolidWorks thinks they are in the “cat-bird-seat”, that they have no ‘real’ competition, and that we have no where else to go. What if we could prove them wrong? How about a poll asking what CAD platform comes closest to SW in capabilities; whether we think that company would listen to us; and what, realistically, we are prepared to do if SW continues to ignore our needs and desires? Maybe that would stir SW up a bit. What do you think?
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Yeah, I’ve been thinking along the same lines. Just an informative post that gives a little blurb about other CAD software capabilities and a little about their maintenance plans. Inventor, Solid Edge, Pro/E, NX, VX, Spaceclaim, Alibre, MOI, modo, Alias, Rhino, Iron CAD, Think3, CoCreate, Kubotech, 3DSMax, TurboCAD, Shark. Just information about alternatives. You don’t have to settle for bullying.
Matt,
As usual, this piece was very well written with just enough spice to keep things interesting. I agree with the lot of what you said, which I guess is also the consensus of the community.
I can’t say I’ve ever followed other commercial software “scenes”, but I have to think that this “user rebellion” of sorts is rare. You have to think it’s going to become more common as users connect and realize they are not alone. Blogs like yours are the perfect medium for these groups to develop and grow until the perfect conditions come together.
In this case it was the change in policy and addition of fees that was the match. Your first post was the flint. And, unfortunately for him, Richard Welsh was the gas.
One other thought. In response to at least one post that pushed the idea that your readers’ views did not represent those of the majority of users:
Even though we are few, I have to imagine that many of us influence at least a dozen other users through their places of employment or clients.
I for one started a new job last month and advised the engineering managers that we skip 2008 and wait until 2009 is stable before upgrading (SP3.0?). I have to say I was ready for a battle but received no push-back whatsoever. They were actually relieved that they didn’t have to deal with it.
So there’s 15-20 seats. The company that I left in March will also go straight from 2007 to 2009. That’s another 12-15 seats. Makes you wonder how much “power” we actually have, doesn’t it?
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Thanks, Chawnskie.
I’m honestly not sure what to think about all the attention this generated yet. SolidWorks is a big dog for any tail to wag. I essentially just want to throw down the gauntlet and see if anyone there has the balls to pick it up. The documentation flap, which was much like this one, but a bit smaller in scale, has presumably gone nowhere. I’ve seen no follow up, and the bits of the 09 Help I’ve seen were of varying quality, with one new section being uncharacteristically thorough. How seriously can you take the Help if it doesn’t have screen shots of the interface?
Anyway, I hope this has not been a practice in vain futility, but I’m prepared for that answer should it be the correct one. Deep down, I can’t imagine what sort of event it would take to make SW give up its greedy grasping for bucks while mainly satisfying internal employee vanity rather than real customer requests. You can make statistics say anything you want, and it seems SW does that. They take a survey, and use it to justify a predetermined point of view, then go ahead and do what they had been planning on doing.
Matt, I have to say… well written. I could not have said it better myself (not without a week or two worth of full time work on it anyway!) :).
I miss full featured, professional enhancements to SolidWorks the most. (the SolidWorks that seems long gone).
Thanks, Matt, for spending all the time it must have taken to not only read through all that, but compile it into a single stream of thought.
King Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall, but didn’t know what it meant. So he summoned a man of renown, of keen mind, able to solve difficult problems. He explained the puzzling writing on the wall to the king.
Much writing has been done for all to see. Can the kingdom be saved, even with such an interpretation? It is up to the king, at this point, and may even be too late now. I fear the kingdom may be divided and given to the new rulers.
Jeff Mowry
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Jeff,
That’s a great analogy. The writing on the wall. I hope SW can regain some of that magic that we all felt years ago when SW was opening new possibilities for us. Now we just feel taken advantage of.
Matt-
Well put, good job. I agree with all you’ve said.
For me, the bloom is off the rose. I’m no longer excited about new releases, in fact, I dread them. SolidWorks, most companies don’t install the newest version because they want to, they are usually “forced” to install the newest version because one of their suppliers has.
In my opinion, Service Packs are a crutch, a bad habit, an addiction, a drug that SolidWorks cannot not wean itself off of, let alone acknowledge they have a problem.
The total cost of ownership of SolidWorks is too high. It has to be micro-managed and carefully administered by a Power User.
I’m tired of the same old senario. Come on SolidWorks show us what you’re made of and make these improvements.
Devon T. Sowell
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
Preach the truth brother. However, I have yet to purchase high-end software where I feel satisfied with the service and upgrades provided to me. My company paid $30k in acoustic testing hardware and another $30k for the software and $16k in training and the first year of support was included. This resulted in finding out nine months after purchasing that an upgrade had occurred three months after the purchase. One would think that I would have found this out during support calls regarding bugs but the only reason I found out about the upgrade was I received a letter stating I needed to start subscription service so that I could receive the annual upgrades. The subscription service just feels like a scam no matter who you deal with.
Where to start? I was going to copy a paragraph and expand on it, but the whole thing is well written and accurate. Lets try this angle.
SolidWorks, There are two companies reading this blog. You SW and a new upstart company looking for a niche. One of you is going to figure out that the niche is good practical hardware that runs very reliably on reasonably inexpensive hardware. That company will fill the niche and will get a big prize. If you want proof, I offer SW 10 years ago. I have chosen purchased and used three different CAD softwares and I have always chosen well. I never used Autocad. Changing software is hard, It is a pain in the backside, it is a research nightmare, it is a performance hit. I don’t like to do it, I don’t look forward to it, but the reason I bought SW is gone. You don’t supply what I need any more. I am hanging on because I don’t want to bother to change and I haven’t found the new kid yet, but this series of threads has convinced me that it is past time to move. SW has become what it is with malice and forethought. Now for me and thousands of other old customers who have sent in there thousands of dollars every year, Prove me wrong or step aside.
Frank DeWitt A customer who’s SR number starts with 0000 0004