Has SolidWorks lost their Mojo?
Borrowing a title from a SolidWorks forum post some months back, we have to ask ifSolidWorks really has lost their mojo. SolidWorks has always been one of those CAD products that engendered a lot of loyalty and excitement. But recently we haven’t heard a word from SolidWorks bloggers, aside from SolidSmack (the only one that gets paid for his blog, which extends far beyond SolidWorks or even CAD). Devon Sowell has thrown in the towel. Gabi Jack isn’t coming back. There is nothing from Ricky, or Jason or Brian, Ruiz, little from Anna. Even my blog has been quiet for a couple of weeks.
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It’s not that there’s nothing to write about. The call forSolidWorks World papers has started. The Top 10 list is about to start. 2012 Beta 2 is out. SolidWorks World 2012 registration has even been available for a week already, and I’m the first blogger to even mention it, as far as I can see. Each of these topics in past years would have been plenty for several individual posts. No, there is plenty to talk about. It’s just that no one is excited about any of it.
If you’re a 2012 beta tester, you might think that’s cause to get excited. But no. SolidWorkshas added a lot of stuff in this release, but very little of it is actually related to CAD. That sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.
Even Matt West, the social media manager for SolidWorks was on twitter wondering how to breathe some life back into the SolidWorks blog scene.
Jeff Ray famously asked how to kill SolidWorks, and now we know the answer – makeSolidWorks look like PTC from the late ’90s. Oh, SolidWorks as a company will continue to sell whatever, but in my opinion, they are alienating long-time customers with scattergun “innovation”. This is the same company that 10 years ago bragged about being focused 100% on mechanical CAD, and criticized their competition for losing focus. PTC lost their mojo when they declared that “CAD is a solved problem”, and abandoned it to take on more lucrative problems. Now we see SolidWorks doing the same, adding to the CAD product line with PDM, simulation, design communication, sustainability, costing aids, piping, wiring, circuitry, e-CAD, standalone 2D, and even AEC. This is the transformation of a CAD company into a PLM company. PLM is product development where there is very little focus on CAD. Most of us bought SolidWorks as a mechanical CAD tool, and the company has been slowly turning its back on CAD over the last decade, and now design is just one cog in the wheel, and not even the hub anymore. It would be OK if MCADS got the same devotion of resources as it used to get, but it doesn’t. If you read a recent What’s New for SolidWorks, you would see much less CAD development than you would have seen 10 years ago.
PLM does have a place. Larger organizations need each “cog in the wheel” offered by PLM. But should you really buy all of the software from a single vendor? Shouldn’t you exercise your right to choose and get best in class software from a variety of suppliers? Regardless of how you answer that question, SolidWorks built their reputation by catering to the segment of the manufacturing industry that focuses on the mechanical design side of things. Users made the software what it became, and we have been rewarded by seeing the development of the tools we need halted.
Do you really have to be excited about a CAD tool to use it? No. You don’t. And just because there is no excitement doesn’t mean the software has lost any of its usefulness. CAD Mojo is not a thing that helps you with your design, modeling or documentation work. But I think what is clear is that SolidWorks in 2011 is headed a very different direction from say SolidWorks2001. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. Have your needs changed? Is the new SolidWorksdirection more or less in line with your needs now than when you bought the software? Do you need a CAD tool that continues to develop as a CAD tool? Or do you really want them to develop semi-functional solutions to every product development problem under the sun?
It wasn’t that long ago (Nov 2005) that SolidWorks offered me a job as a regional technical manager for northern California. I didn’t accept because I didn’t want to go back west. I was really hoping for the same position back east. Had the geography been right, I would have certainly accepted the job. I feel bad for people who have recently accepted positions. I’m sure it’s a good job with good pay, but the non-tangible rewards that employees had a decade ago are probably no longer there. I have several friends that work for SW, and this is nothing against anyone as an individual, just against the corporate beast, and how it feels from my position as a customer outside the organization.
The only possible upside to this loss of mojo is that SolidWorks is saving all of their basket of “wow” for V6 – but if that is web based, then many of us are immediately not wowed by that. SW is very tight lipped about V6 details. The first installment on that – n!fuze – has been completely underwhelming. It’s a tool that would certainly be useful for communication, but because of marketing details rather than technical details, it appears to be DOA (dead on arrival).
I personally want to be excited about my tools again. I want to deal with a CAD provider that is excited about providing CAD tools. The process of design (“design” is still the D in CAD) hascaptured my imagination, and I want tools that match, backed by a company going in a direction that benefits me. I guess its up to SolidWorks to decide if they fit that description or not.
very useful tips. Thank you.
I found some SW activity!
SW2012 promotion has started at SW blog even if the company seems practically invisible elsewhere.
Looks like they are keeping the countdown simple this time. Good idea really after last year 😉
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/solidworks-2012-countdown.htm
(is launch really only 10 days away? that seems like a short beta period)
Remains to be seen what people actually think about the content though.
The market will decide they said and DS judgement day draws ever nearer…
I see Ron Bates is doing his bit to revive SW mojo http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2011/08/solidworks-veterans-on-solidworks-2012-ron-bates.html v
Nice one Ron. Ron must read here and be concerned too. 🙂
The big 2-0 eh? Do they dare have a going away party? Does the SW 21st mark the beginning of the cloud?
Keep watching this blog space for more exciting installments.
Yeah OK. sorry for going on. Ill give it a break for a few months.
There isn’t anything we can say now to change the final outcome anyway 🙁
Solidworks “quiting on its users” is what takes the cake….
Top Solid is an excellent product and is doing a fine job for manufacturing….check out the local site and videos. Nice job.
@barry
Barry, I’m confused by your comment. Are you recommending clear-cut or have they been a disappointment to you? What takes the cake?
@Cam
Read your comment and recommend you take a close look at this site….www.clear-cut.com
and review.
My experience in manufacturing field spans 30 plus years. I have sold CAD/CAM systems in the past including Solidworks array of products.
I have found when “dissimilar systems” are joined together (as in the case of Solidworks and its various other CAM systems) many problems occur.
These problems are well beyond the scope and understanding of an end user who is most often still struggling trying to understand operations. As is always the case when a software “bug” occurs, it is the end user PAYS the price both in enduring the problems and in the cost of lost production.
Purchasing a CAD/CAM software developed by a single source is a far better alternative because software bugs and problems are addressed by ONE team of people who QUICKLY identify and correct the problem. It does make the difference in customer success. Having been thru the typical tech support finger pointing games that go on for months on end with Solidworks products Top Solid IS the better option.
Well said Bruce!
Robert and Lego, we are contemplating a change to try and solve some of the same issues does Direct Edit make more sense, part file size I assume is smaller ( no feature tree) so less overhead for large assembly’s, maybe all drawings could be saved in one file?
We have looked at Solid Edge, nice but $$$$$ we may look at Spaceclaim as an addition to SW only using SW for very detailed work or if one of our guy’s dosn’t want to change (doubtful) Dose anyone have experience with Spaceclaim?
@Robert Martin
Robert, no one can tell you if it is the right software. You need to spend some time testing your stuff in each of the packages your interested in and duplicate a complete product design workflow to really be sure. They take a lot of time and typically a lot of money, but in the long run can save you so much more and can prevent you from being stuck with a turd.
Mr Anonymous your life as a SW reseller in Singapore has become more difficult for you not because concerned users are talking about the fate of SW here but as the consequence of the business decisions DS made some while ago that are beginning to intersect with reality. I am sorry about that. SW users arent happy with DS either. I suggest you contact DS and make it known that you are losing business because their star product as good as it is has less and less of attraction in each new release and that what is due to replace it seems to be widely regarded as the wrong pursuit. This is what happens when DS go ahead and put all their efforts into making something customers dont want regardless of the feedback. Perhaps VARS could band together and start a ‘Save SW’ campaign although I think it is too far down the road to go back now. Sadly I dont think this will be the last time we hear from an unhappy VAR or customer however lets lay the blame for this sorry situation where it belongs – at the feet of DS.
The product is still the best, but these article make hard to sell Solidworks against competitor.
@Robert Martin
I feel your pain.
Assuming you’re using Win x64 and all the ram you can get, there’s not much one can do improve large assembly performance.
My largest assembly is 131mb with 2460 parts (197 unique subs/622 unique parts).
The drawing is 19 pages. No way SW can open it, so the drawing is split into 3 files (sizes are 147, 150 & 130mb). Our deliverable is a pdf, so we use acrobat to combine the pages.
There’ll be days nothing will open without crashing. If the drawing is crashing, I’ll try opening the assembly first and then open the drawing. If the assembly is crashing I’ll open the drawing first. If that doesn’t work I’ll open a subassembly and work my way up the tree, opening subs, until I reach the top level. Checking files into PDM is also an adventure.
I know this is a little off topic, but it looks like I might get some honest feedback here.
Which I don’t think my re-saler is giving me.
Solidworks, is it the tool I need? I’ll give my background first.
I’m a laid off architect with 7 years experience with Revit and alot more with autocad and datacad. And now I’m drawing ambulances with solidworks (using for 3 months). I like a couple of things solidworks can do (flat patterns are neat), but for the most part it’s a fight every day. We have up to 10 exterior compartments that all have doors, frames, boxes, handles, etc. that all have to have different names, so they don’t read the other compartment door. Then when you pack and go a model it looses many of the relationships and you have a folder with 800 random ass files. That I can deal with and my construction drawings work ok.
But my bid drawings, the pretty drawings to get the jobs, crash, take 10 minutes to save and open up, because I have to put the whole model(247,548KB has 7 sub-asm) on each sheet, 10 sheets in a drawing. And I have a new huge computer.
Is it me or is this not the right software for large assemblies?
Sorry for the diversion. And thank you for any feedback.
@Jeff Mowry
Gah! This sounds all too familiar. I’ve been using SW since 2007-Beta and was the self-appointed evangelist in this area code for years and years. I even lead the charge to get my entire company to abandon ProE a few years back in a wholesale switch to SW (now at 160+ users I might add).
I still think it was the right choice, but for c%$^& sake guys and gals at SW HQ, fix your f’n product! There are bugs, bugs, bugs, and more bugs everywhere you look. Graphics bugs (strange flashing menus, tiny flickering windows in Win7, missing faces…), failed geometry for no reason, features that fail at the bottom of the tree that permanently break features at the top, selection bugs, appearance bugs, hopelessly bad EPDM bugs, stability bugs, useless dialog/error boxes, broken PDF writer, and the list goes on.
And don’t get me started on the 10+ year trainwreck that is Toolbox. Don’t ever try to use that over VPN – you’ll be in hell waiting for something, anything, to happen. At that point even a crash is welcome – at least the software DID something to prove it was still alive.
Me and my 159 other fellow users don’t really care all that much about the next, wicked-fun-to-demo new feature. We just want the base level software to run flawlessly for more than 30 minutes at a stretch.
There was a time (SW2005?) where I could get in “the flow” of a design for hours at a time without the tool getting in the way. These days even the hardest of the hardcore SW zealots in our building can be heard swearing over their cube walls at the latest SW-induced annoyance. The shine is gone. Could it be that the blogs have gone quiet because everyone has finally come to the realization that “wow, maybe it’s just me, but SW seems to have downhill in recent years, but rather than say anything negative, I’ll just say nothing at all.”
I will say that it was unthinkable to consider any alternative to SW just a few years ago, but that notion is now completely thinkable.
Beginning of the end? Time will tell. I’ll be over here, just following the swearing.
I would like to see some posts that show how to do an interesting shape in Solidworks, and similar geometry in another CAD software. There are many ways to model shapes in Solidworks. I am sure that SolidEdge has some nice fuctions and different ways to generate geometry.
An good evaluation of a CAD software is very difficult. I doubt that I use more than 30% of Solidworks functionality. Just evaluate interesting parts. The salesmen can then respond with a nice model done different.
A comparative view of a type of geometry generation would help me decide to stay or switch. It may also provide insight into yet more ways to generate geometry with any CAD software.
@matt
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/sympathyflowers.gif[/img]
@matt
Matt,
I am not a salesman.
I am a SW user since 95.
There is a lot of SW bashing and disappointment expressed in this blog by many every day, you included. And concerns raised on this blog by yourself is what opened my eyes to the changes and non changes that SW has experienced over the last several years.
I am a user that has looked at the marketplace and all tools available.
I was responding to the users from a user standpoint, which I am, a path they could follow similar to the one I did, but not take two years.
My post was an answer to several previous comments posted.
Rick McWilliams
Solidworks has lost its MOJO. CEO speak is not reassuring to me.
Solidworks does not care about CAD generation of geometry. They are never going to fix the numerous geometry bugs. I think that they have lost the software talent and direction.
I am embarking on a big new venture. I will need some good CAD tools for the team.
Rick McWilliams
I like Neil’s nasty sense of humor. I think that he is very much on topic and has some valid comments. As a community of Solidworks users we need to keep up communication. I hope Solidworks regains their Mojo. If not, we need to inform each other about the CAD options
As far as a funeral, software companies and software programs have come and gone thru the years. SW makes the third major software package that I had made a living with either go away completely or was changed into something totally new or has been pushed to the side. That’s where SW is right now.
It is an emotional thing to devote oneself to a product for 15 years and then realize that it is going away… being replaced, and with what… no one knows right now (i.e. funeral).
It’s not a funeral, Its change. Class or no Class.
The bottom line is what the change will be and how long will it take to get here.
Have a nice day.
Ok, if you’re wondering, yes, this applies to you. I had to write to one guy and tell him sales pitches on this blog are generally not tolerated, and in particular, on this post it’s kind of classless, like hitting on the widow at a funeral.
At this time, I’ve had to delete sales pitches from 5 salesmen. I left Dana Seero’s comment because even though it is just a tease, at least there is no blatant pitch.
I may yet get around to doing an evaluation of Inventor Fusion, or 123D, but other than that, Autodesk sales pitches are not welcome here. Nor are any others.
This is a user blog, and and if you want to comment, it should be from the point of view of a user, or have some value to a user. No sales pitches.
@Rick McWilliams
We used to be able to put folders in folders… regression, lol.
Funny – I’ve gone back to Pro/E the last few months and can do whatever I want. Sheetmetal isn’t quite as easy but the sketcher is SO much better.
Don’t give Solidworks a second thought, except to tell other people what didn’t work correctly.
Gabi I think you take my jest too personally. Had the suit arrived I am sure you would have not only looked darn good but brought great dignity and poise to the position…
Re the blog yeah I’ve thought about it but blogs seem to be going out of fashion now. I dont think I am really a Facebook or Twitter person…
Every now and again I buy one of Matts books to help out with his hosting costs 😉
Honestly I like participating here. Its a great place to talk about SW things that dont get aired elsewhere. I value the fact that Matt has a genuine concern for SW and champions the users perspective..
I like Neil’s nasty sense of humor. I think that he is very much on topic and has some valid comments. As a community of Solidworks users we need to keep up communication. I hope Solidworks regains their Mojo. If not, we need to inform each other about the CAD options.
Mmmm, yes… I have a confession to make… I actually turned into a zombie during my college years, but I’m the good kind and I don’t eat brains, I just drink coffee. However, now that you mention it, I think I never received my Santa’s helper suit! I can’t believe it! It must’ve gotten lost in the mail or something. What a shame! I bet I would’ve looked so darn good in it while standing on my corner, pumpin out the vibe. LOL Oh, this is so much fun. You made me laugh so hard today, which I haven’t done much of since I broke my foot. Thanks! 🙂 But seriously, Neil, you should write all this in your own blog, instead of taking over Matt’s blog. Just an idea… Anyway, thanks for the laughs, and now back to work… and more coffee.
Gabi somehow you missed understanding that when you were part of the blog squad you were a convenient tool of marketing no matter if you participated out of a genuine interest in SW and enjoyed meeting the people.
Until recently SW had zombie bloggers dressed as Santa’s helpers standing on just about every street corner pumping out the vibe. I agree it had become too much however something seems to have changed lately.
It looks like SW have given up talking about existing SW along with the change of CEO (who is he again?) and the new corporate livery apparently we learn now because Facebook and Twitter are more lucrative haunts to intercept the youthful customers who will be receptive to the cloud.
Rather than latent excitement or new hubs of excitement I think there is an air of disappointment and foreboding if not resignation. Many people have an investment in the use of existing SW that appears to be redundant and more so when confronted with increasingly weak releases.
If you write SW books, are a trainer, consultant, reseller, 3rd party provider, CAD manager or even just a humble user who may have just done your cert pro exam you have to be looking at DS with serious doubts about the future.
Really this unpowered glide or dive depending on how you view it is not a good look.
It doesn’t instill confidence in anyone and looks like DS still dont know where they are going with this other than they want to break with everything they had going for them.
Why you would want to kill off a very successful business with 1 million users in this fashion is beyond me but I bet their competitors are loving it.
It is good to hear that somebody thinks Solidworks will improve the software. Of course students are excited to create models and learn what solidworks can do. They do not need accurate or reliable geometry for a complex machine. Students get what they pay for.
Social media is doing well. It allows people who talk with their thumbs to dismiss serious CAD designers as blog trolls.
I would like solidworks to reduce the number of features amd make the remaining Solidworks essence reliable. Even sketches get all messed up at tangent constraints. Curves are inaccurate and unreliable. Projected curves dont quite project to a surface. Surface trimming flips and fails. Lofts get all twisted and faces thst should be planar are not quite planar. Lofts ignore sections! Sweeps can diverge into butterfly shaped surfaces. Sweeps fail to sweep past the first bend in the path. Boundary surfaces can have big gaps at the boundary. The parent child relationships form when they are not necessary and freeze the order of the feature tree. Consuming sketches is stupid. Let me organize the sketches into folders with a logical sensible relationship to the features. Maybe a folder could contain folders.
The Solidworks file structure is totally bloated. Files are 1200x larger than necessary. I just love all of the deleted features that are unrestorable but still in the file. The 512 byte blocks that contain nothing or one letter. Most of the file is polygon faces for display that get regenerated on load and rebuild.
Solidworks has had several years to address these fine old bugs. Fix the bugs already.
It’s nice that there are people willing to defend it, but some folks don’t see what’s going on as “innovation”. The difference between “new” and useful shouldn’t have to be pointed out. It’s also nice that you are worried about your neighbor, but do you buy your neighbor’s software for him? I’m worried about the tools I bought, and my needs for my company. What I need, and the reason I bought SW in the first place is CAD geometry tools. It’s easy to demonstrate that the bulk of 2012 enhancements are not CAD related. It’s also easy to show a huge list of geometric design related needs – it’s not a solved problem.
@Matthew West
Matt,
yeah, I get that there are more outlets than one, but I did quit Facebook some time ago. I see a lot of SW chatter come across on LinkedIn too. The Twitter format doesn’t really allow for conveying much information. I watch it, but the noise ratio is intolerable. I prefer G+, although that is still building.
Anyway, I’m just lamenting the lack of CAD development when there is so much left undone. The other stuff is ok, I’m sure someone needs it, but it seems to come at the expense of CAD.
Hi folks,
I know SolidWorks since 97 and have installed even SolidWorks 95 on my XP-box … really fast by the way 😉
Like you I know the evolution of SolidWorks since lot´s of years. And every new release I´m eager to check new features and enhancements. And I´m happy to have little influence on it.
I appreciate to know some SWX-guys personally. And vice versa ;). Don´t know, if that would be possible in a CAD-company with thousands of employees?!
But, folks, could it be possible, that we are satisfied of features and pampered by hundreds of new features every release? And yes, some features I don´t need and it doesn´t make sense for ME, but my neighbour is happy about it, cause he´s waiting for that particular new function since years!
In the meantime 1.5 million people (education included) are using SolidWorks. So, it´s clear for me, that possibly more features are in the box which I probably don´t need.
Is it possible, that due to the big number of new features and innovations every release, we are expecting too much?
SolidWorks isn´t 3DCAD only! Only a third of new customers are buying SolidWorks only. The huge rest are buying SolidWorks Professional/Premium plus Simulation, Documentation, data management!
Ciao!
Johannes
Bah! Autodesk University trolls now! Who cares about a *long* bloody form?
If you were genuinely interested I am sure you could have managed it.
Besides you can probably find the same info and more on Youtube.
Not a lot of respect being shown for the grieving family here is there…. 😉
I’m a blogger who, very occasionally, writes about Solidworks. Although we are Autodesk AEC app users mainly I deal with manufacturers who use Solidworks so useful to know what they are able to do.
A recent Dassault promo required a huge form filled just to view their sales guff. Put this blogger off even watching their stuff, let alone blog about it.
http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2011/08/maybe-no-dassault.html
I would say DS is banking on that type of ignorance and complacency to carry them through into the brave new world of cloud culture and serfdom.
Are we to take it Facebook and Twitter are the new mediums of SW promotion and the prime target is emerging markets and students?
I guess its easier to capture naive new users coming out of education than satisfy discriminating professionals using SW in the real world.
Possibly business is more interested in protecting their work from competitors than sharing it with their friends?
I have to say I am a little stunned at DS willingness to shed the SW skin and ditch all that has been invested in SW and community goodwill over the years.
I really wonder if DS hasnt badly miscalculated the whole cloud gambit.
Chasing after social media addicts to assure a future market seems kind of a desperate way to rationalise or legitimise what many perceive to be a strategically wrong move to the cloud.
I suppose we will find out soon enough.
Even though you are not qualified to talk about anything I would like to hear you comment on the the lack of new CAD features in SW2012.
It was stated that SW would continue to be developed (which most folks probably took to mean geometry stuff) and it doesnt appear that this is the case. Has the retirement of SW been brought forward?
I totally and wholeheartedly agree with Matthew West. I was coming here to express a very similar idea, but he beat me to it. I think you have to look beyond the “usual suspects” and you’ll find that there’s plenty of enthusiasm out there, plenty of people talking about CAD and SolidWorks, and blogging, twetting, posting videos, and what not. Almost overwhelming at times, actually. But those people aren’t in any organized blogging mafia or anything similar. Their purpose is not to create excitement about anything or convince anybody of using/buying the CAD. They just use the software and talk about it, just because, just like other people may choose to talk about food, or Android or Scala or post tutorial videos on how to wear drag, how to be emo or how create video games using Greenfoot, etc. It seems like everybody has a blog and/or a need to voice their opinion somewhere these days!
For me, at least, it wasn’t “lack of mojo” that made me stop blogging about SolidWorks. It just happened that way. Things change and life takes you in different directions, I guess. All you can do is go with the flow. 🙂
I’m not really qualified to talk about the whole idea of mojo and whether or not we have it, don’t have it or ever did have it, and discussions about geometry tools are beyond my area of influence. But if anyone is judging the level of enthusiasm about the brand based on the blog entries of ten to fifteen people who started blogging about SolidWorks four or five years ago, then I agree that you’ve probably seen a decline in activity. I won’t name any names, but more than a few of these ladies and gentlemen have experienced major career or life changes in the past year, which have forced them to focus on other areas. We’ve hired two of the most prolific ones, and others are still writing when they get a chance between raising kids, working extra hours, and making ends meet. Things change, and I would say that four or five years is a long time to write regularly about something that is fundamentally a work tool for most. But that said, there have also been some folks who have started new blogs as well. Just to give one example, earlier this year, three Worcester Polytechnic University students began contributing to the SolidWorks Education blog.
Personally, I take a much more big picture view. So while people aren’t debating company policies and development decisions on blogs as much these days, there has been an explosion in activity on other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and in other languages such as Chinese and Korean. When you look at everything in aggregate, the number of people talking about SolidWorks — and CAD in general — goes up consistently year over year. And by and large, people are still excited about what they can do with the tools in SolidWorks — especially students. Like most of our customers, they probably dont know the CEOs name, or know about the stuff announced at the most recent SolidWorks World, and don’t have an opinion on the cloud. They’re just excited that they can model a cool motorcycle design they thought up, and share it with their friends. The enthusiasm is there. You just have to widen your view.
Matt / SolidWorks
@Kevin Quigley
“What I am waiting for is a company that offers new ways of creating geometry”
Exactly, well stated, I agree.
I would add large assembly and drawing performance, and complex geometry management. SolidWorks lacks in these areas. For example, I can crash SolidWorks at will.
Devon
Guys guys. You have the wrong end of the stick. My point is that amongst all the mainstream CAD solutions, and most of the minor ones, the way the system works and the outcomes you can get are very similar. That was my point. Nobody is offering me any new ways of creating geometry. The next big thing has nothing to do with clouds (so please let us not start of on that again OK). What I am waiting for is a company that offers new ways of creating geometry – not simply a way of editing what I already have. That is the next big thing.
Quite frankly I am in my comfort zone with SolidWorks – it has taken my 15 years to get there. I can model faster in this than any other app I have. It is the more reliable and robust. It does the job. I did not say it was easy. I did not say I was never frustrated. But I am waiting for the next big thing that takes my productivity up another level.
In short, what I am waiting for is the quantum leap in modelling that realtime rendering brought to rendering. That quantum leap requires new technology and (probably more importantly) new interfaces. Now I think there are potential candidates for the technology around – TSplines, FreeDesign, SensAble, ILoveSketch but all are lacking in the interface department (aside from ILoveSketch – which is lacking any commercial take up).
Of course I want what I have to incrementally improve and get better. But what I really really want is a better way of doing everything.
Which was, I think, what you were asking Matt? Has SolidWorks lost its Mojo? My answer is all CAD systems have lost their Mojo. The market is stagnating for geometry creation, so they focus on doing things that tinker around the edges – geometry editing or workflow issues. All very commendable but it really doesn’t do it for me. I’m a creating geometry man.
Talking about the excitement going on elsewhere while attending a funeral is probably not good form.
It does seem though that a fair number of users are not believers in a SW hereafter in the clouds.
This does present opportunities for other vendors to hit up on the widow.
No doubt some of them consider themselves to be handsome suitors 🙂
Edit: Well I see they got moved along…back to grieving..
@Dana Seero
Wait? For what? We’ve been waiting since 2007. Name one new innovation since SolidWorks 2008 was released in the fall of 2007.
My definition of innovation is an improvement or feature that real users actually want and use, not some Marketing led idea like “Magnifying Glass” or “Speed Pack”.
Devon
The biggest problem isn’t that the software isn’t growing very fast, its that they still force a new release on us every single year and refuse to make the product backwards compatible by even a single release back.
@Dana Seero
Dana, we’d like to believe you. Do you have anything to back that up with?
It’s mid-August in North America, after one of the snowiest winters on record. Everybody is on vacation, or wishes they were. Wait until the second week of September.
SolidWorks is still a CAD company, first and foremost, and in my opinion there is plenty of passion there.
Great post Matt, I agree with your opinions. They “killed” SolidWorks all right, its dead. They generate no excitement, offer no new innovation, and act like a company that prefers to just maintain the status quo.
SolidWorks thinks a free 2D application is an exciting product? 2D? Seriously? It’s 2011, not 1998
Devon
as always Neil puts my thoughts into words better then i ever could!
Matt’s list of features or enhancments alone is something to die for (but what do we get in 5 years…. finally a mirror assembly command that morrors around CoGs or something and web noodles.. WTF?!!?
And all of this without a single mention of how much attention Drafting needs! Or Weldment Profile Handling needs. Or.. i just have lost hope in bothering to express actual ENHANCMENT IDEAS!
Matt, I will say one thing in response to a part in your blog post. A company that seems to actually still have a mojo about creating CAD tools seems to be Seimen’s. I follow NX as i also use it and those guys still have the passion and innovation (not to mention my favorite… the drive to create professional, feature rich, integrated CAD tools and no sign of fluff!
@Rick McWilliams I couldn’t agree more – I would give my left ring finger to have an unbreakable geometry creation set. The more I learn about SWX, and apply it, the more ‘issues’ I face. I workaround all of them and I completely and absolutely agree with Jeff Mowry’s problems. I too have seen this crazy and insane behavior too and have in the last month had a full blown nervous breakdown in front of my work colleagues over Solidworks Bugs. Yep I questioned my own sanity, intelligence and competence in a massive meltdown. I’d had enough and was so close to back onto a disability pension for the rest of my life (I have a severe mental health disorder that is centered on perfection). My employer convinced me otherwise. I don’t usually like to say anything unless I have got something to add. I never really came across bugs when I started with AutoCad 2000 but SWX 2003 was my first experience of ‘issues’. But only in the last two years have I seen such sheer incompetence. Just today I had to spend two hours modelling a part entirely from scratch using surfacing and it was just because it couldn’t be saved out correctly to IGES. The basic features all had zero issues, The most stringent checks revealed absolutely nothing – it just couldn’t translate to a correct iges. The problem two large surfaces were simply missing. Got zero help from tech support and had to wonder about SWX fillet tools because the fillet applied was slightly different despite the geometry that creted both parts being exactly the same! The software is a daily joke now instead of being something I treated with huge respect a few years ago.
couldn’t agree more. If it weren’t for version compatibility, I would be more than happy to stay with SW2008. Nothin new for years…sad @matt
ok, with exception of Mouse Gestures, which were a long time coming, but a huge improvement in workflow efficiency.
The last couple of months I’ve been working in earnest on a complex assembly for a medical product. Boy, did that bring out the cussing (and no, not just for failed g2 edge blends).
Features that fail, but cannot be deleted without deleting nearly hundreds of downstream features that really aren’t children in any way. Sudden crashes to desktop when editing splines belonging to lofts or fills. Moved bodies that mysteriously move themselves—over and over—from where they are clearly defined by their respective Move Body features. The sudden inexplicable need for a coincident mate to flip 180° when editing an assembly—and the tremendous wait time to solve while all this happens, with no means of escape. Inexplicably moved sketch elements—defined in context—while I can see that they don’t match in any way with the context that defined them. Entire solid and surface bodies becoming disembodied from hundreds of downstream features because of simple upstream edits, so the bottom housing is now confused forever with the top housing. (How do you make this stuff up?)
When you really push the software, you’ll either lose the deadline or lose your sleep. I’m bitterly tired of both. I’ve had enough of fighting my CAD software. Do I have a better alternative? No—not now. But I’ve reason to look for it.
Who’s got mojo? Modo.
http://www.luxology.com/modo/
ooooh! we got ratings now. I bet 347 *surfing while they work* SW employees anonymously vote me down… edit: well darn it they went away again…saved! 😀
There is a difference between loss of mojo and deliberately induced destruction of mojo. “Hope and Change” the French way.
@Kevin Quigley
I know you don’t believe there is no room for improvement. There are entire ranges of geometry problems that have only token attempts at solutions.
My designs are mostly controlled by my own creativity, but when you get right down to it and are trying to model something complex in detail, you need tools you can control.
CAD systems are too good? What? Geometry representation is still an immature market when you consider the possibilities and the current limitations. There is a lot of ground left for some enterprising company to cover. Not just superficial marketing gimmicks, but substantial stuff like a successor to NURBS. Some of the stuff left out of SW is stuff found in other systems for years.
– conics…
– spline control/evaluation
– curvature control/evaluation for all surfacing tools (setting minimum curvature for a feature)
– automated degeneracy elimination
– expanded control curves for Fill
– reinvent the entire sketching scenario
– combine curve features with 3D sketches
– mesh to nurbs within SW. ScanTo3D is lame
– the list goes on and on…
I know its fun to argue the other side of any point regardless, but the next big thing is hardly on the horizon while we haven’t even fulfilled the hope of the current thing. We’re using the CAD tools that we have, but we try to develop workaround techniques to get past the limitations. When there is no more need for awkward workarounds, and you don’t have to compromise a design because of the tools, only then is CAD really a solved problem. If you’re not using multiple layers of workarounds to complete surfacing tasks, you’re not doing anything challenging.
@Kevin Quigley
>We have all reached CAD stagnation. We are all waiting for THE NEXT BIG THING.
Really? I could probably write a long list of things I want improved or incorporated.
This has nothing to do with the token make-overs, tweaks and ancillary bits and bobs SW seems to think are a fair trade for subs $ going forward.
I think you are confusing the self mutilation occurring inside the company with stagnation.
The next big thing apparently is the cloud and I can assure you I’m not waiting for it…
The whole problem is that using the CAD tool we have in SW is coming to an end.
Matt makes fair comment about the conspicuous lack of SW promotion and user enthusiasm recently in comparison to their past nurtured channeling.
If SW users were to all grow up presumably they couldnt be bothered going to party events like SWW either? Perhaps DS have a totally different and better (hard to see) marketing approach in mind but it does seem to be a reckless abandonment of what has brought ‘ market leading’ success.
As the features dwindle and the promotion fades there isnt a lot to keep people engaged/aboard.
I would venture 2012 will be the quietest SW release yet…not even a broken count down clock this time to accompany it…largely because of the embarrassing lack of substance.
Resellers will not be happy either.
There is no point Matt West asking what they could do to get people ‘excited’ because they are already is mourning….
At this time mention of SWv6 doesnt seem to offer a brighter/better future.
Does it really matter? Maybe it is quiet because we are all too busy working away using it? I know I am. I personally don’t need to have the reassurance that I am using a market leading app – I just prefer to know that I am using an app that does the job I need it to do, and I think more and more users are thinking like that now. What cad companies forget is that we users , er, use the software. Do I get a excited about my CAD system? No. Do I get excited about what I can create with it? Yes.
Do I want better geometry creation tools. Of course. Tell me one mainstream CAD company that is focussing on geometry creation tools rather than geometry editing tools? Not so easy eh?
The problem for all the CAD companies is that all the whizz bang stuff is old hat now. Realtime rendering? everybody does it. Easy to use analysis, ditto (but not many can afford it). Direct editing? Yawn.
The problem (for CAD companies) is that most CAD systems are just too damn good. They are all much of a muchness. 15 years ago, when we all wet ourselves by being able to create an extrude, fillet, shell, create drawing, edit model, update drawing type model/workflow it was all new and exciting – I mean I can recall having people just sitting watching me work! These days, we shout at our laptops when we fail to get a g2 edge blend around a tight corner, or when a surface shows a minor kink in a tight area. It is all a question of perception.
We have all reached CAD stagnation. We are all waiting for THE NEXT BIG THING. In the meantime we are all busily working away USING the CAD tools we have…..and isn’t that, after all, what we should be doing?
I used to frequent CAD only blogs and forums but to be honest I spend more time looking at general design issues now. Maybe we are all growing up?
If SW V6 doesn’t start showing some progress shortly you most certainly will see some fall out with their customer base. The problem is that all the other CAD vendors are not doing much more to take advantage of SW relaxed approach to everything. Autodesk is too busy acquiring silly companies with no focus on mechanical. Solidedge is about the only alternate but I don’t find this product much better than SW. What’s missing is innovation and no one seems to be doing this right now.
Solidworks has lost its MOJO. CEO speak is not reassuring to me.
Solidworks does not care about CAD generation of geometry. They are never going to fix the numerous geometry bugs. I think that they have lost the software talent and direction.
I am embarking on a big new venture. I will need some good CAD tools for the team.
This blog post certainly opens up the possibility to tell SW management exactly what you think of them, or should I say of what Dassault tell them to do.
Reading the Whats New 2012 – yeah I found it on Facebook fairly quickly – no such thing as a secret on the net – just confirmed what I feared, namely that SW development is practically dead.
In a previous post here I suggested SW charge 1/3 subs for it because the actual CAD content is only worth about that much.
They must be smoking funny stuff if they think the net worth of 2012 is $1295+. It is just not good enough. Its even insulting to ask…
In fact I think if you were in denial about the pending death of SW once you know what is in there there wont be any more doubt.
Jeff Ray was quite right. (what geographic location is Jeff at these days?)
If you have say 10 seats I really doubt you are going to cough up for this *upgrade* in troubled times unless collaboration with other companies requires it.
Lets get real about it. The SW we luv to use and banter about is dead just as sure as the US economy is (sorry..and the rest of the world going down with it).
For me there is no point trying to revive interest in SW and I think everyone else knows it too.
Bloggers know it. (what happened to the blog squad??..) Forum posters know it.
Even I would say its obvious SW know it and seemingly are resigned to it.
While their competitors have been moving along nicely SW is in serious poo now.
They, DS, went in the wrong direction and persisted with it against user base wishes.
They have nothing to show to maintain interest in their existing wares and nothing real to show in the miracle cloud based wares.
n!Fuze has been a non starter out of the gate. Frankly it was never going to succeed and not just because the martketing side was mangled.
Worse still for the *sceptical* user audience it has been a fizzer opener to the main cloud event.
Honestly I doubt SW is coming back from this.
They have completely poisoned themselves out of contention. Unbelievable but true.
I know the cloud is not where I want my CAD to be.
I dont want to see or pay for social networking stuff in SW and especially not as a substitute for real CAD tools.
This is why I have abandoned SW upgrades in favour of buying tools that are useful to me like Rhino and Tsplines.
The last real upgrade of worth I think was SW2007. Since then things have jerked about in uncontrolled fashion and then trailed off in a parabolic dive. SW2012 may be feeble to behold but it has to be all over by SW2013 surely…
Not good at all.
DS must have a major problem to keep customers now.
IMHO 😀
It’s kind of like watching a boat race where you have a clear leader, then something happens and they seem to stall with the competition coming up on them fast and, in the case of PTC, passing them by without any effort. The near future will be quite interesting that’s for sure with Solid Edge’s Synchronous Technology efforts, PTC’s CREO mashup, and the hint of Solidworks V6’s “Catia” underpinnings. I find the whole Catia V6 direction to be quite interesting too with the ablation of a compound document structure and essential reliance on a PDM database. Watching that one closely.
I had to laugh at what’s coming for 2012 – it’s a shame that there weren’t great big leaps in real cad tools – but we will be able to adjust our units faster.