Response to Jeff’s Blog post on Reverse Compatibility

Before you read this article, go over to Jeff’s Blog and read his post on Reverse Compatibility. I’ll wait here patiently until you finish. It’s short and uses small words so it shouldn’t take too long.

Ok. I’m posting my comment here, because, along with “never eat anything bigger than your head”, my mother always taught me that the “response should never be longer than the question”. I don’t have that gift of brevity and simplicity that Jeff has, so I can get as long winded as I need to get here on my own blog.

Jeff claims to have a reliable source for this reverse compatibility claim. I think the anonymous source is leaking a severe understatement. I think this will turn out to be the first wave in ever more tantalizing leaks about groud breaking stuff that SW is planning. Let me tell you this: They are toying with you. Once you know what is really happening, you will look back and see this leak as disingenuous rather than simply interesting.

Let me guess what the next leak is going to be… can’t play the performance card again, users are still crying wolf over the 2009 supposed performance increases. Maybe it will be something to do with making your FeatureManager more manageable. Or maybe the ability to treat any imported geometry as native. Or maybe rebuild speed for parts. Or maybe external references without external references. Or maybe more controllable sketch relations. Or maybe better control over feature order. Or maybe you could just take one of my recent posts on history-modeling and pick a topic from one of those.

Do I have some sort of inside information? No. I’ve been officially excommunicated because a SW VP came on my blog and shat all over himself, and they had to have someone to hang. Eric Droukas, a former SolidWorks employee proclaimed on Twitter

What happened to SolidWorks? https://dezignstuff.com/blog… Unfortunately, this is an example of how not to communicate with users 4:59 PM Aug 21st from web

So the 45 people who commented, the nearly 300 people who voted and me aren’t the only ones who think the VP was way out of line. But I’m the one who got hung for it. Looks like we are dealing with frail egos. Previous and more secure SolidWorks administrations dealt with criticism in a much more productive manner that was beneficial for both sides. Excommunication doesn’t really affect me much, but I can tell you it doesn’t improve my opinion of SW leadership at all. The new regime in Concord has driven out some good talent, and they don’t have the charisma or engineering interest of either Hirschtick or McEleney.

Anyway, just pointing out that I don’t have any inside information. I can read, though, which is sometimes better than inside information. Remember I posted (and then JB the CAD Terrorist copied it on comp.cad.solidworks) that a Wikipedia entry on Catia V6 points out that the V6 kernel is based on direct editing? In an article soon to be published by Desktop Engineering, one of my points is that the whole version compatibility issue is one that is if anything actually underhyped by the Synchronous Technology marketing blitz.

The term “reverse compatibility” is one that was delicately crafted by history-based modeling people, and is intended to make the idea of compatibility between versions seem absurd. Compatibility is compatibility. “Reverse” compatibility is nonsense. It would be better to just call it “non-compatibility”.

SolidWorks has spent a lot of effort trying to convince people that because of the annual file structure changes and new features added to the software, version compatibility in SolidWorks is impossible. This is BS. With all of the tricks they employ to read file formats from other major CAD players, they can certainly do something in the version compatibility area if they wanted to. This is a breakdown of the will, not of possibility. The marketing ratchet keeps people pushing forward.

For an eye opener, if you have some time to kill, read a transcript of the Dassault Systemmes conference calls. More than 60% of DS revenue is from subscription. They are going to drive that treadmill as fast as they can through a sheer profit driven application of technology. Here is a quote from one of the transcripts. Grabowskipointed this one out to me in this article.

Driving these results were strong growth in subscription revenue, which was up about 20% in constant currencies. Unit growth was more subdued at 2% on lower and new license activities in Americas …

Anyway. How does version compatibility relate to this? Well, I think DSSW sees a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is indeed another train. Right now Synchronous Technology is getting beat up by users. If you go to theeng-tips Solid Edge forum, you see that there is a good deal of skepticism about ST. Some people have drunk the kool-aid, but users aren’t really buying it. I think it will take some time to get widespread acceptance partially because users have a lot invested in learning history-modeling, and partially because the ST and similar are still what I consider to be in pretty primitive states. SolidWorks 95 did not knock Pro/E out of the ring, but 2001 and later did. Direct editing is going to have to mature a lot to knock history-modeling out of the ring, but the potential is there.

So, SolidWorks is considering version compatibility, which it has previously scoffed at as impossible? No doubt. It is because they are going to be forced to compete in a new direction – direct editing. Catia V6 kernel makes this possible. Synchronous Technology and Spaceclaim make this necessary.