Is Enovia V6 Really a Lock-In Weapon Against Teamcenter?

When I attended Siemens PLM Connection, it was amazing to me how central Teamcenter was to the whole Siemens PLM mission. Teamcenter is of course the data/lifecycle management tool from Siemens. Large organizations seem to like Teamcenter for various reasons, but what surprised me most what how frequently Siemens would place Teamcenter at a business that used CAD X (non-Siemens CAD), and Teamcenter and CAD X seemed to work well together. Customer happy.

The next CAD evaluation that comes around, CAD X is replaced by NX. I can see how that would work. And it makes sense from both the Siemens side and the CAD customer side. You buy what works. You can mix and match or go all one brand.

So Dassault is getting their @$$ kicked by Siemens in the Teamcenter/Enovia realm. If you are Dassault, what do you do? You obviously fight back. You develop a “platform” where Teamcenter cannot play. That is exactly what V6 is. A commenter on this blog asked if Teamcenter and Catia V6 were compatible. My off-the-cuff response was no, V6 is supposed to store the part/assembly data in an Enovia database, not in traditional files. Teamcenter can only manage traditional files, not Enovia databases. So as soon as you buy in to Catia V6, you automatically buy in to Enovia, and you no longer need Teamcenter.

Nikon. Press release on the Teamcenter/Catia V5 installation being changed to all Catia/Enovia V6. CAD stays the same, PLM changes.

And meanwhile, Martyn Day keeps twitting from the DS European Customer Forum.

Is it dirty pool, good business, or both? Is it good for the customer? Why does it matter on a blog mostly about SolidWorks? It matters because SolidWorks is headed down the Enovia path here shortly, and will be following the same template that Catia users are currently breaking ground
on. SolidWorks (the company) has a bad track record with file management software – first buy SmarTeam, then let it stagnate and die (SmarTeam was one of the most hated PDM products that I’ve worked around). Buy PDMWorks (now SolidWorks Workgroup PDM), then let it stagnate, and users are currently on notice that it won’t get much in terms of update love. Buy Conisio (now SolidWorks Enterprise PDM), let it stagnate, and now it is being transformed into Enovia. Enovia is the V6 vortex- it tends to suck you in.

We don’t know any details about how this will work because SolidWorks is not very open about its plans for your data. One way to envision the future of a customer’s relationship with SolidWorks is that SW V6 comes out, and because it is cloud-based, they suck (there’s that love mark again) your data into an Enovia database (after about 80% of it is translated successfully from the Parasolid kernel to the CGM kernel [why 80%? because SW subscribes to the 80/20 philosophy for CAD development]). With your data in a subscription-based cloud (that evaporates when you stop paying), in a file format that you cannot access directly (features broken up into fields in a database), there is no such thing as escape. Also, which file format is the one most notorious for bad translations? (I mean other than Alias)?? Right, Catia. So getting good data out of Catia – er, I mean SolidWorks V6 – will be fraught with even more problems than getting it in. Is this double or triple lock-in at this point?

As a customer, am I going to move forward into a scenario like this? No. Do we know that this is true? No. We know portions of it are true, and SW has not denied the rest. Of course lock-in is considered good business by CAD vendors. You have to worry when dirty pool and good business look like the same thing.

I’m a bit of a closet etymologist, or at least I just like to eff around with words. I know, exciting hobby, right? Just as a point of curiosity, you know how I complain about the “love mark” bit when ever I hear it. Well, the word “Enovia” seems to tie in to the whole love mark bit if you stretch it enough. The prefix “e” is common for online type electronic stuff (email, ebook, eDrawings, ecommerce…). So if “e” is a prefix, then what is “novia”? “Novia”, it turns out, means “girl friend” in Spanish. So DS has crafted us an electronic girl friend, whom we shall love, and give hickies (love marks) on the neck or other sundry locations. Is it a stretch? Is it off the mark?

I know all of this is a wild guess. But “Search your feelings. You know it to be true.” Is there anything about how things have proceeded in the last year or two with the “Dassault-ification of SolidWorks” that leads you to believe that SolidWorks is changing in a good way? Do you think the changes coming are going to benefit the the vendor, the user or both?

41 Replies to “Is Enovia V6 Really a Lock-In Weapon Against Teamcenter?”

  1. Hello There,
    I am working on Siemens Team Center PLM in a leading automobile company for the last two years. Its a very good tool . I would like to know either ENOVIA or Team Center is best.
    Regards,
    Ajay

    Reply

  2. Matthew
    Has DS moved its email to the cloud managed by a third party and sold off its redundant server hardware? Has DS removed MS Word and Excel from everyone’s computer and replaced it with Google Docs (I don’t mean on an individual level but at corporate IT policy level)?
    If not, why not? These are proven technologies with us here and now and work very successfully on the current bandwidth limitations.

    I guess this is the test as to whether DS actually believes the arguments it is putting forward for V6 or by its own action proves it to be a thinly veiled attempt at customer lock-in.

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  4. Is Solidworks getting nasty? I can no longer post on the forums. The SWW2012 wish list is not visible to me. They must not want users to know how old the bugs are. So many of the bugs date back to SW2007. It is sad to hear the Solidworks files are getting even larger. I thought that 1200X was bad.

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  5. I thought you would show up about now Kevin. 😉
    Honestly I don’t think we will see anything at SWW either…
    While there are obviously aspects of the cloud that DS absolutely don’t want to talk about for fear of frightening their customers away before they have them locked in I really don’t see what the difficulty is talking about CAD functionality we already know resembles CatiaV6. Its going to be less than CatiaV6 but..
    Anyway after 5years work – which incidentally seems like a very slow development for a lite version – other vendors are hardly likely to rush out a copycat in a few months if horror of horrors something vital is accidentally shown.
    It would actually be a good opportunity to do some advanced publicity, get people interested in the good stuff. There is much to gain from engaging with customers on a positive note or should I say much to lose by continuing to be evasive/secretive.
    Catia is probably off most peoples daily radar unless you are a user. I only have a general idea of what’s available. Why not get out and talk about aspects that are going to sell SWv6 and offset the objectionable bits we are all too well aware of.
    If DS are going to recover from the bad start they made showing the cloud I think the sales pitch of SWv6 is going to need to be about useful CAD functionality rather than virtual universes and social media.
    Perhaps there is no good stuff to speak of and they know it and know we know it.
    Perhaps as I said before its such a lousy deal for customers and cloud performance is so poor its better to say nothing….
    Maybe Matthew could keep us amused during the festive season with a ‘name the as yet unnamed’ or ‘guess the release year’ competition. DS could donate a turkey as a prize. I am sure they have at least one to spare. 😉
    Maybe its end of the year itis but I’m tired of the ‘count down the days until SWW’ game. Lifeboats away…

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  6. Neil do you really expect DS to reveal what is coming? Tell me one other CAD company who does this? Siemens don’t. Do you recall the launch webinar for ST? Claims of 100x the speed were bandied around. Is anyone seeing 100x the speed? With my new workstation and SW2012 I am seeing some operations 100x faster than the old machine running 2011. There you go.

    Every CAD company has technology previews. Autodesk have shown tons of stuff that had its 15 mins of fame then fizzled into obscurity. Why would you expect SolidWorks to release any product info right now? A month or so from SWW?

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  7. Matthew by the time DS release details they will no longer have an audience.
    Sorry to say it is beginning to make you look idiotic when you appear and trot out the same corporate nonsense…next generation, as yet unnamed, yada yada..

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  8. @Matthew West
    I really wouldn’t mind something good to write about. How about it. Throw me a bone. Just find some geometry-related corner of SW V6 that you would like to expose, and have a geometry oriented customer write about it. I would love to have something positive to write about SW. All I’ve got right now are bugs in 2012 that haven’t been fixed, or new ones created with 2012.

    I know you’ve got some stuff in there that I’d like.

    My question was really more about what sort of stuff are we going to get rather than what sort of stuff are you going to tease us with.

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  9. @Neil
    I posted the links above in response to Matt’s request for more information on the V6 platform, and particularly CATIA V6.

    Our next-generation yet-to-be-named SolidWorks applications are still in development, so releasing details at this time would be premature, as things could change between now and the time they are released. What we showed at SolidWorks World 2010 were a handful of technology elements, not a full-blown product. We will release details when they are ready for release.

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  10. I am not sure DS would want to give SWv6 this capability otherwise it would cut into Catia sales. …which is another good reason not to make the two data types compatible….
    I think most likely what makes into SWv6 will be limited to about the same capability as Tsplines provides now and I suspect you will have to pay extra for it like for FEA or rendering.
    I seem to remember though this is about the third or fourth time since the SWW demo Matthew has failed to give us anything but a few miscellaneous Catia links when asked to provide real information about SWv6. I kind of feel embarrassed for him but what a pathetic debacle on the part of DS to either not have anything because they say/they don’t know themselves (hardly credible) or because apparently they are afraid to front their customers.
    After 5 years all they can do is duck and blather about social media, and creating virtual universes…
    I wonder if people will stop being polite and get pissed hearing this stuff over and over.
    Quiz time: Does anyone see any similarity in DS, the US constitution, Fukushima and Michael Jackson?

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  11. I have taken a look through the CATIA v6 links Matthew posted here. In wading through it I found an extra one:

    http://youtu.be/ItCfgKs9OJk

    This is the kind of thing that excites me. The problem with a lot of Enterprise system online content is that there is no detail – it is all zapped through to a fast soundtrack. What would be more valuable to a potential user would be to see that toy being modelled in realtime with a voiceover soundtrack. Matthew – do such things exist? If not get me a copy and I’ll do some 🙂

    Interestingly PTC recently bundled a similar system called Freestyle with every seat of Creo Parametric. There are some videos of this on YouTube as well, but it looks very impressive (even more so as it is included in the base package).

    Judge for yourself.

    http://youtu.be/XHOnhB3bPjI

    Hopefully this is what we will one day get with TSplines for SolidWorks anyway, but if PTC have this in the core system it does beg the question what DS’s response will be (or Autodesk’s come to that). If Creo is on version 1, this kind of stuff is only going to get better, so I for one would expect SolidWorks v6 to have this kind of functionality from the get go. If not, well….

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  12. Btw Matthew I see my comment on the SW blog about the radiation danger in Tokyo re SWW Japan was removed after being buried. Everything is perfectly normal in Japan isn’t it? Sales and appearances are much more important than informing and saving people from cancer, Bertrand included. While people live, eat and breathe contamination, DS, the caring corporation, would rather have nothing truthful about the situation said on their blog….
    Of course DS employees are just doing their job. As a decent human being I couldnt work there however…and no I am not an anti-nuclear activist hitting on Bertrand’s post. The worst is yet to come at Fukushima. Lies and cover ups… RIP Japan.

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  13. Matthew I think DS/SW should be showing the modelling capabilities rather than talking about social networking and virtual stuff.
    Why get out there and antagonise customers repeatedly by rubbing on stuff they don’t want or need or plain object to, or conversely say nothing which makes DS look arrogant or deceptive. If SW is going in the rubbish bin there has to be some very good reasons why users would want to do that.
    While there are aspects of the ‘lifelike experience’ I see in the videos that are useful I think the sales pitch is too big and showcases the wrong things…its going over the top of people who would just want to push and pull and see stuff in motion.
    I’m not saying SW users are less able but they probably have a scaled back, practical bent.
    If the intent of the marketing is to inspire people along the lines of say doing a Burt Rutan style project then the virtual experience arrow is missing the mark and landing in the Edsel scrap yard ATM.
    Focus on your typical user not some customers who do large projects and probably should have bought Catia to begin with.
    …and DS have to get out there and tell people how the cloud aspect is going to work. Security, costs, lets hear it. Sitting in silence and sucking on gums is killing prospects. The longer this situation goes on the worse it gets. If DS intend to wipe SW entirely and start from zero with a new brand and no customers they are doing well.

    Matt we may have less corruption but we also don’t have much industry that is viable thanks to globalisation and being a small country our business and expertise is fairly limited. You might want to stay where you are from an engineering point of view. 😉

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  14. Geometry! Does V6 allow a designer to create geometry? What kinds of surface and curve defining tools will be available? I want stable accurate geometry! I want control of shape in every detail.

    I want control of my data. Will V6 have files that relate to parts. When V6 crashes a model I do not want every model at risk.

    Of course big business Solidworks customers create and solve problems using politics and smooze. Ultimately geometry creation will become important to actually build a product. Of course if the engineer has issues, plug in another engineer. I post more often when Solidworks has failed to rebuild, fucks up geometry, hangs or needs a restart. Those bad things will not happen with V6.

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  15. @Josh Tiffin
    Hi Josh. We haven’t released any details about our next-generation tools yet, but there will certainly be migration paths for customers who decide to move from the current SolidWorks tools to the new ones once they are available. Also, keep in mind the the current tools will continue to be developed and supported concurrently with the next-gen tools.

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  16. @Matthew West
    The big question I have is what will happen to a company like the one I work for where we have 50-60 seats of SW and just implemented EPDM. We’ve had to do a lot of customization to get EPDM to work for us the way we want it to. We still aren’t there yet but is that all lost with the V6 platform?

    Will we have to switch to Enovia and start from scratch again?

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  17. @matt
    I like to think about V6 as a platform of (potentially) interconnected applications, not an application in and of itself. The question “what is V6?” is different from “what are the capabilities of CATIA V6?”

    You’re right that the SolidWorks business was built on the strength of SMB customers, and that’s still a focus. For single-user shops like yours, advanced collaboration and data sharing tools may not be requirements. But we do have lots of larger customers who *do* want those kinds of capabilities. I think you just don’t see much conversation about it online because (for the most part) the people making those decisions aren’t hanging out in forums and commenting on blogs.

    I also think the data federation aspects of the V6 platform could be beneficial to a lot of our customers who have to deal with external data. And I think once we start showing some of the new modeling capabilities that will be part of our next-gen tools, a lot of people will be really excited.

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  18. @Matthew West
    Well, the white paper spells it out efficiently enough. It’s all about global enterprise data management. This is not SolidWorks typical clientele, and not who got them to this point. Most of the folks who comment here are not from that demographic.

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  22. OK so Catiav6 and SWv6 are much the same thing…SWv6 is a feature limited version of Catiav6. Catiav6 lite. Its designed to be a cloud app from the ground up even though it doesn’t necessarily have to be used that way entirely.
    It actually only runs on the Windows platform but you might use a browser on Mac or Linux to view and upload to Windows servers for things like rendering and analysis, and ultimately CAD hosted by local Vars? Where does the data natively reside then? Is it encrypted? Can Catiav6 and SWv6 share data?
    DS have to provide definitive statements about what they are doing because if DS have Bernard out front babbling virtual nonsense and handing out love bites SW is finished…
    I still think you are quoting a mission different now from that which was floated originally at SWW which showed people messing with CAD over the internet and made a big deal of cross platform. Perhaps its just more deliberate obfuscation to mention the desktop…
    I think all 6 of my speculations apply to some extent. My patience is running out for silly evasive corporate games.
    Time for DS to get out and fess up to their customers with facts. Give the love child a name after 5 years…good grief…. and please not Con!FuzeV6.

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  23. What about geometry definition in the “V6” universe. What kinds of surface features are to be expected? I presume that “V6” will not generate the broccoli shaped lofts and sweeps of SW. It will be such a relief for curves to be accurate. It will be wonderful to have sketches where radius corners stay radius corners rather than turn into cusps.

    What about geometry database? I presume that he 1200X oversize files will be a thing of the past. Imported 2D autocad geometry will not expend from 100KB to 2MB.

    I am sure that translation of CEO speak into english sentences that say something factual will remain beyond the reach of Google, but maybe not Dassault.

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  24. @matt
    Tell you what–I’ll talk to someone in Velizy to find something that encapsulates the V6 platform experience. Give me a day or two.

    Hopefully your readers will understand that for the time being, we can’t make comparisons to the existing CATIA V6 application and our as-yet-unnamed next-generation technology that is still in development.

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  25. @Matthew West
    Matt, how about this for an idea:

    Why don’t you put together a bunch of links to help educate people about what V6 is, and what it isn’t? If you don’t want to be taken out of context, I would think an open sharing of information would be a great way to make sure that it doesn’t happen.

    What is the difference between SW V6 and Catia V6? Maybe we could start there.

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  26. @Neil

    The problem with pulling single quotes from Twitter is that you lose the context. In this situation, I was responding to two other gentleman discussing a new sketch tool for CATIA V6, and a response from the CATIA YouTube admin that the capability was not cloud-based. One of the gentlemen was under the impression that CATIA V6 is a total cloud app, and was wondering how a new application could deviate from that belief. I was not referring to any SolidWorks application.

    Regarding speculative point #6, I would refer you to this blog entry from November of last year, in which I interviewed Austin O’Malley. While Austin may be gone now, the content remains valid. I will quote one piece directly:

    Interview with Austin

    Matt: So how do you see new SolidWorks technology working when it’s released in the next few years?

    Austin: We’re still working on everything, but I think what you’ll see are applications that rely on a combination of local and remote resources, at least when it comes to design software. We’ll use the power of the desktop or mobile device to give you a great interactive experience, and use cloud resources to give you access to data anywhere and offline computation of complex tasks (like analysis). And, while we may have a browser application in the next few years, it may not be your primary tool, but rather an option you can take advantage of for some operations, like viewing designs from your home, or a client’s office.

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  27. Mark :
    I work alot with a Company that uses Pro-E, Catia, and Inventor with Enovia V6 and we do all of their training for all 4 products. They are now looking at changing that solution due to the inability of Dassault to play better with thier CAD files. This client was on MatrixOne and hence Enovia due to the IBM acquisition and they don’t miss a beat to give other CAD vendors the finger when it comes to in-CAD integration of the product. They use about 1100 licenses of Inventor and Dassault won’t even think about making a plug in for other software until it has been in the market about 6 months just to dig the knife in a little. Now this company will be taking a hard look at the new Autodesk Vault PLM that is going to get announced in two weeks

    Mark, my comment may sound bias because of my situation, and have less value for those who associate me too much with the CAD i’m using..anyway here my comment…

    Autodesk have try many times to launch a vault or something similar.

    What make you think they will be successful this time?

    My question or should i say my interrogation is…what about Teamcenter. Unless i’m completely wrong, they can manage all the file types you mention above and it is a proven solution.
    Here what i have found

    http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_gb/Images/tc_integraton_for_inventor_fs_W1_tcm642-49241.pdf

    To get back in the core of the subject..

    About two years ago i had a conversation. A company looking for a CAD get a training on SE to know it better. One of the question I received was regarding files exchange.

    Remember the premise…. SW avertize that there is so many SW software in circulation that it many not worth it to look for something else…

    So I was told that when SW are open in SW everything open correctly, when SE files are import in SW they also import correctly. If SW files where open in SE we have a mix result. This was due to SW having, multi-bodies in a single part file, Sheet metal sharing the same workspace of machined part, part’s configuration store at the part level, weldment in part etc…..

    So i ask myself, is it really SE who is wrong trying to import SW files or is it SW making it harder for other CAD to open their files.

    And this where i connect to this article, it might be easy to bring stuff in a database (single file), but i can be easy to make it hard to extract that information so it can be read correctly by other CAD platform.

    Matt, from my point of view, seeing all the efforts (marketing) SW have deploy to create a unify product under the excuse of ease of use, faster design etc.. i’m not surprise to see this culminate to a “SQL base Solidworks”.

    Remember this “the medium is the message” this database thing looks to me as Dassault miss the point, we manage parts to create products and we associate information to the process all this need to store in some sort of database…. not the other way around and it is a too simplistic to take a shortcut to reduce this equation to a simple database equation.

    I’m tall and i need big shoes, if i wear big shoe i should get taller…..

    I was on another planet for the last few months so i may not be up to date ..sorry if my comment went in the wrong direction…

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  28. Hey its back again! Unfortunately readers will have to interpret here and there cos I missed the edit phase. 🙁
    …Matthew must be watching this site like Homeland Security…. 😉
    Aren’t Catia and SWv6 much the same thing?

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  31. Several possibilities –
    1. They realised they can’t make it work technically and are now only doing the simple upload to farm services like rendering. In that case why bother to kill off SW at all and waste so much effort on recycling Catia code? Doesn’t someone need their are kicked out the door if that’s the case? Consider the loss of customer confidence, goodwill, the disruption, wasted effort and resource, brand damage, etc etc.
    2. They are being sensitive to anti-cloud fervor and want to make it sound less provocative by using friendly words like enhanced or enabled. Conversly what sort of product might DS work on that has a disability…hmmm…not very PC to talk about a fat, retarded, spastic, gay, crippled application outright, better to give it a name like n!Fuze.
    3. The plan if to ease users into the idea over time with more and more transitioned to the cloud like the slowly cooked frog. In the meantime everyone breathes a sigh of relief reading about desktop and forgets about pay as you go, kernel migration etc.
    4. Matthew has a poor memory or shouldn’t be talking. In the later case he should be focusing on the true meaning of current events like Thanksgiving.
    5. Matthew has been sent out to leak a BS cover story for change because its his job to twitter info too embarrassing for bosses to admit to themselves. Ladder climbing arse saving cowards…
    6. They really have abandoned the browser for the desktop because customers told them they don’t want it. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say the core functionality resides on the desktop before. It was all about browsers for all platforms. Presumably if it resides on desktop then they won’t develop for Mac and Linux as well. Where are they going with a statement like that? Around in a circle…I am not sure that actually reassures anyone about the future or those upset about how this whole thing has been handled.

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  34. @Matt
    I have not, I work under one arm of the company that works more closely with the larger Autodesk part of the buisness, so I see more with the Vault and the upcoming Vault PLM than anything else. My comments mostly stem from the upper management groans and engineer frustrations with having to “work” with it. Pretty big groans for a 15 Billion dollar company too!

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  35. @Mark
    Interesting comments. Do you have any experience directly with the V6 product in terms of working with it? I’m particularly interested in the cloud and database aspects.

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  36. I work alot with a Company that uses Pro-E, Catia, and Inventor with Enovia V6 and we do all of their training for all 4 products. They are now looking at changing that solution due to the inability of Dassault to play better with thier CAD files. This client was on MatrixOne and hence Enovia due to the IBM acquisition and they don’t miss a beat to give other CAD vendors the finger when it comes to in-CAD integration of the product. They use about 1100 licenses of Inventor and Dassault won’t even think about making a plug in for other software until it has been in the market about 6 months just to dig the knife in a little. Now this company will be taking a hard look at the new Autodesk Vault PLM that is going to get announced in two weeks to either force DS’s hand or jump ship or work as an intermediatry between Inventor and Enovia with the Vault Connect export. I have yet to see a Vault Catia addin, but they keep a functional SolidWorks and Pro-E plugin current to release year.

    As far as training goes Devon, your feeling of lack of training is very warranted. I don’t work exclusively on the Enovia/Catia training we do, but the way I heard it, we had our customers stand up a the DS conference and openly state they only get training from us due to the lack of if from Dassault. I’ll have to ask Martyn about it when I see him next week.

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  37. SolidWorks V6, ENOVIA V6; Dead subjects for me.

    3 years later, DS SolidWorks still can’t provide meaningful information about them to me, I’m a SolidWorks Solution Partner! 3 years I’m still waiting for; SolidWorks V6/ENOVIA V6 pricing, WHO can sell it to me, WHO can demo it to me, WHO is using it, WHO can train me and how much training costs.

    I give up. What a pathetic joke.

    Devon Sowell

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  38. What happens when an eNovia database gets corrupted for some reason? It’s hard to accept (and very frightening) that the data within would all be lost then. If files are not available anymore on a file system basis Dassault should at least provide tools to extract data to a file system basis again. Or give users a choice on how they want to work.

    I have the example of the PDM system that Trumpf’s (sheet metal machines) TruTops CAM software uses to manage their files. They have a database system overlooking a specific folder (and all it’s subfolders). All the files are available on a file system basis. And as long as you do anything with them within this folder, the PDM database nicely keeps track of everything. But EVERY file stays visible and available on file system too.
    You then get the extra’s in their own PDM browser; you can define and arrange every column as you like and filter on whatever Trumpf specific part property. Properties that are unvisible in a classic Windows browser.

    Maybe Dassault has something like that waiting for it’s customers.
    The future will tell.

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  39. ‘Ok so aside from listening to ‘old pop songs to brighten our day…
    Solidworks isn’t changing, it has been terminated,replaced by decree without regard of customers. Its been handled very discretely since the public demo bombed though. Too discretely really because it appears there is something to hide for a good reason and most likely there is.
    So why has SW been terminated?
    All the reasons that have been listed here before;
    To rationalise development effort, capture customers at the top of sales curve, kill piracy, eliminate licence costs and external dependency, be a cool corporate player in the latest tech bubble which is the cloud, open another revenue stream from running server farms, assert French ownership and style over their opportunist asset, makes a clueless CEO look progressive and effective at board meetings, it ends conflict with their top tier product, it increases revenue what ever the economic situation, it avoids competition and the innovation race, it leverages and refreshes the brand for a second bite on the back of all the effort users put in, it lends some marketing appeal to a hapless generation of social media addicts and gamers, it picks up a quantity of low fruit from pay as you go CAD in developing economies and ruined old ones, it introduces timely obsolescence to keep people actively buying and updating, it bolsters the income of fibre optic cable companies and telcos, it makes the customer and third parties totally beholden to the vendor, it eliminates the service pack preparation, testing and software distribution with live incremental patches, it eliminates formal documentation in favour of searching databases, it allows DS the opportunity to raise the price to the same as Inventor or more citing new tech even though it does the same or nothing you can’t do already using other software…and on and on..

    What does it actually do for customers?
    Well aside from being majorly pissed off they find their CAD investment is redundant, their special knowledge and experience is redundant, their SW books, certification, macros and other bits are redundant, they still need expensive hardware to run other software, the software they bought to augment SW now may not have a use or combine well with the cloud, they are seriously inconvenienced by migrating to another solution be it the new improved SW or an alternative, their legacy data is fouled up, their supply chain and partnerships are fouled up, their data is insecure on the internet, their IP is compromised by careless social media nattering, they pay more for less and they must always pay, performance will no doubt suffer unless users have dedicated lines, their are no real identifable cloud benefits for users that existing solution couldn’t offer or in conjunction with existing specialist services, SW will always walk a few steps behind Catia, they probably don’t need the distance and scale collaboration tools for the type of projects they do, early adopters of revolutionary solutions will experience unnecessary problems and trials they can’t afford while their competitors going with evolution will not have the same penalty…

    You know I can’t be bothered going on. For a change like this to be worthwhile it has to offer distinct advantages to both and it doesn’t. It is apparent the changes just about only benefit the vendors bottom line provided they can impose the scheme without somehow disclosing them. The technology changes users might truly benefit from are the not ones DS are pursuing.
    Bernard is not connecting with the users real needs when he talks of second life experiences, creating universes, and other Zen like stuff. He comes across as someone hopelessly lost in his leadership role but supremely confident he can still convince people he knows what he is doing even if he actually doesnt. Unfortunately the board were fooled by the rhetoric and bravado. Then again they probably aren’t aware of anything much beyond $ signs.
    DS have let this guy destroy SW and their customers must carry the can.

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