Need a server farm? Pay for only what you need.
SolidWorks first foray into the cloud has been n!Fuze, an online sharing and markup app. It is widely seen as a flop as a product. Problems with the implementation and the marketing have left a lot of people wondering how SolidWorks saw this as an improvement over 3D Instant Website, which was discontinued just months before n!Fuze’s release. Still, some folks are eager to know more about cloud pricing, and now that we have seen a real cloud app from SolidWorks, albeit a dysfunctional one, we have something concrete upon which to base our usually baseless conjecture. n!Fuze is $70/month, requires 2 licenses to run (one for creator one for viewer), but only priced in 2 different time chunks: 12 months for $840 ($70/mo) or 3 months for $231 ($77/mo).
Matt West (only the messenger here) is the sacrificial lamb SolidWorks sends to defend them here on my blog without any new information. Matt’s a decent guy, but he’s defending what looks to be a more and more ridiculous situation, as time goes on. SolidWorks doesn’t offer any new information about cloud plans, while customers range from the restive to the resigned.[pullquote]it may turn out that there will not be an economically viable business atmosphere in which to offer full-blown CAD for heavy duty use over the internet for even the next decade.[/pullquote]
Here’s the argument, or one argument. If you don’t need something very much, you can rent it. That’s a common thing. I rented a hydraulic post hole digger because I only needed it for an afternoon, I wasn’t going to use it to make a living. Matt’s on solid ground so far.
But when you consider that n!Fuze is only offered in chunks of 3 or 12 months, it requires at least two paying licenses to use it, and you extend the pricing to SolidWorks sort of functionality, it could really start to add up. Say that SolidWorks has 50 times the functionality of n!Fuze (it easily has much more), lets be generous and say that SW would only be $250/month instead of $70x2x50=$7000. But you can’t just rent it for a day or a week. You have to rent it in chunks of 3 or 12 months, and by that time, you may have spent a couple thousand dollars.
If you’re going to spend that kind of money, you might as well just hire some chap in India to do the work for you for $15/hr. So SolidWorks online will sell a lot of outsourcing. Why pay that much for software, training, and an operator when you can go straight to the finished CAD data for much less? Even at engineering consulting rates of $75-$100/hr, consulting with a real pro would still be an attractive alternative to renting hardware/software. With a consultant you’re going the extra distance and also renting the operator, but only getting it all for the exact amount of time that you need. I mean, consultants don’t charge you for 3 months work, but only show up for 1 week, that’s ridiculous. Why should you “rent” software for any longer than you need it, it just doesn’t make sense.
I mean, let’s be clear, hardware is cheap these days. You can get a very passable box to run SolidWorks for $1500. That investment will last you 3 years. The software, depending on what you need is at least $4000. That’s a one-time investment. The operator is needed in both cases, but in a short term rental situation, it may be difficult to hire an experienced operator.
If you rent, at $250/month, in a year you pay $3000. At the end of the year all you get is a door slamming on your back. You might have data files (and you might not, if V6 is any indication with the database), but you won’t have access to the software any more. If you purchased, you would have your software nearly paid for at that point. After 2 years of renting, you have spent $500 more than purchase, and after 3 years of renting, you have spent $3500 (per seat) with absolutely nothing to show for it, and no “rent to own” value or buy out option. This doesn’t account for the extra cost of a heavy duty, extra reliable internet connection.
So, if the pricing scheme stays the way it has indicated with this first foray, I don’t think SolidWorks has a chance to sell much cloud. It would be a full-on cloudy car-wreck on the information highway.
There’s a reason why we aren’t getting any information about SolidWorks cloud plans: I think it could be because they still don’t know themselves. This whole thing is complicated, and beyond the new programming and the bugs it will bring, beyond the technology, beyond the argument of whether it is secure enough, beyond the argument about who owns the data and how to handle risk or breach, it may turn out that there will not be an economically viable business atmosphere in which to offer full-blown CAD for heavy duty use over the internet for even the next decade. If SolidWorks really doesn’t have this figured out nearly 2 years after the initial public announcement, I think the whole idea will at least be scaled back severely in order to do anything at all with it.
There’s another scheme, but it doesn’t involve extorting a lot of money from customers for a service that may not be a very good idea to begin with. It might actually allow customers to only buy what they need (gasp!!) There would be no maintenance, no guaranteed annual income, no need to buy services you don’t need and don’t use from resellers who can’t/won’t/don’t deliver. So I’m quite sure SolidWorks will not go this way. Autodesk also does not appear to be headed this way, they are plowing forward with a cloud subscription model. But let’s take a look at it anyway, and see what a company that respects its customers might do.
Take a look at this site, just as an example. I don’t have any attachment to these people, I just found them in a web search for “render farm service”. Rendering is something we have said several times would be a great application for distributed computing, and distributed computing is a form of cloud. Anyway, the pricing scheme here is not in huge chunks of time, it’s in Ghz hours. That’s processor clock speed x number of processors (cores) x number of hours to complete a job. So you just pay for what you use. Fair and simple.
(By the way, if you really do need a render farm’s services and you use Modo for rendering, Anna Wood has a service called RenderBay where she charges reasonable rates, on a pay for what you need basis.)
With a scheme like that, Matt’s assertion that you could just rent out what you need makes a lot more sense. But honestly, I don’t see SolidWorks doing pricing on a real time basis. They’ve made a business of selling people much more than they need for a long time, and I don’t see that changing. Just like the cell phone company selling you X minutes and you only ever use .6xX.
What I’m finding is that in reality, people range all over the map on the whole CAD in the cloud issue. There are a lot of “wait and see” folks out there. There are also a lot of people ready to drop maintenance at the next opportunity until this sorts itself out. The few folks who are upbeat about the cloud tend to be hawkish on the business side, (and they all have something to sell) looking to drive a hard bargain with people who they assume to be so desperate to touch SolidWorks that they will ignore any financial common sense that ever existed. There are those who simply believe “It’s the future!” (like $5 ATM access fees and 39% interest on credit cards – just roll over and take it). My position seems to change over time. Right now I’m of the opinion that it will be a decade before we see full-blown 3D CAD on the web. In the mean time, CAD In The Cloud will be scaled back to look like everything else that’s on the cloud – smaller, simpler, supporting applications without the huge underlying data and super intense graphics. CAD data on the cloud? You know, there might be some people willing to accept that, but I think the numbers will be small.
We’ve said a number of times the things that make sense for cloud or distributed computing in general: rendering, FEA, CFD, and stuff like that. Intense compute, distributable, controllable. I think SolidWorks is going to have to scale back and focus on these first. Of course they’re going to need to fix n!Fuze even before that. They could start by renaming it, and cutting an order of magnitude off the price, and make the rental period more granular.
I firmly believe at this point that Dassault has a big misconception about what the typical SolidWorks user is all about. When I worked with SolidWorks resellers, more than half of our sales came from small installations, 1-3 seats, and I doubt that ratio has changed much. All of this cloud stuff only makes sense for big installations, and then not Amazon cloud, but local cloud. I’ve talked to a lot of people within SolidWorks, from the resellers, from prominent users, CAD journalists, and self-appointed wonks. The most optimistic of them are cautious. The center seems to be wary of the changes.
I’ve heard the conjecture that SolidWorks is really being pushed to the cloud because there will be no way for semi-computer-literate end users to maintain their own installations. The V6 install will be based on Enovia and its databases. This is the type of install that you have professional IT people or a consultant to do. No wonder SolidWorks is now arguing that moving to the cloud eliminates the need for all that IT overhead – the current installation doesn’t require much, but the V6 one is sure to. It’s a problem that causes itself. This is the wrong direction for the typically independent SolidWorks user. Most of us bought SolidWorks because it simplified things,and V6 will severely complicate things, so they have to take it out of the end user’s hands and put it on the cloud. This is less based on conjecture than you might think. I’ve heard all of this in one form or another from more than one source.
To me, the real question is “when will SolidWorks/Dassault realize the problems inherent in this direction? I think they already know at least some of it. They are out on a limb already. The question is are they going to swallow some pride and come back to safety or are they going to start sawing?
it would be her problem too if the renderings would render in an unexpected way…
@asdf
My point is that this is a non-issue for the customers of Anna’s render farm services. Even if maxing overclocked processors completely burned holes through the motherboards, that would be Anna’s problem and not mine. As long as the end product is a value to me, I’m a satisfied customer.
Besides, as was mentioned already, many of these new chips handle overclocking quite well. I just don’t see how what Anna chooses to do to reach peak value for her customers is any concern of anyone not involved in her business pursuit. Business is risk, and risk tends to correlate with reward to a high degree.
Check out the Blog Nauseum (autocad) blog poll on CAD in the Cloud…
http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/
@asdf
I’ve been using overclocked machines in my business for over 6 years, no problems here at all, overclocked server too.
Well we will have to agree to disagree. There are all sorts of creative anti competitive scams people try on and this is another one in my book. Honestly I believe if they go ahead with this European regulators will be after them for attempting to lock their customers in and extort rent. Ideally they should be looking at what’s going on right now and issuing warnings.
In my opinion the best situation would be for French regulators to go after a French company. As I understand it French regulators are quite aggressive in their prosecutions and have a good rate of success.
I would certainly support an investigation that defines whether there is a crime going down here or not.
@Neil
Neil, I dont know how to tell you and not you get upset but your random example is real situation.
I drive Toyota car with petrol engine in Europe. When I buy it, in store was petrol engine,disel and one with hybrid engine. I look performance of hybride engine and I dont like it, so I buy petrol. After one year in store was 2 types of hybride car.After some eight year (today) in store are six new different types of Toyota car with hybrid engines and only one new type with petrol which look two generation older in comparasion with hybrid car. Nobody dont like hybrid car but they will must buy it because that will be soon only option which will pay off. Stupid but true.
Same thing is with SW. Changes are painfull for existing users but new one which SW get every day will no have problem.
I dont know why I am only who belive in SW V6 and DS.
People forget that DS didnt buy SW yesterday, they buy it 1997 and there is big different betwen SW 97 and SW 2012. We can not say that they kill SW.
I thing SW 6 will not be cloud software, it will be combination of desktop and cloud.
yes i am serious.
it’s not wise to overclock production machines. overclock yours and run the intelburntest (on all cores, max memory) for an hour for example and you’ll see why.
Following up on this I have been looking for info concerning anti-competitive commerce law.
I cant find a case specifically like this one to compare it to since its not usually attributed to software however it seems to me DS are basically engaging in what is labeled ‘coercive monopolistic practices’.
That is, in this instance they can be interpreted to be deliberately making obsolescent a perfectly good product that businesses have come to depend on with the ‘specific intent of engendering continued patronage’ and the rent seeking that could accompany it ie it is a form of racket.
Worse having announced this change they havent supplied specific details or identified any tangible competitive benefits to their customers that would justify such a move or would allow them to make a timely and informed decision to exit and seek another supplier. They do this knowing full well that the longer they delay the more likely their customers would be in a position where they are compelled to migrate to the new product as provided and unwittingly be captured.
No pricing structure is disclosed either so it might be open to ratcheting.
To my mind this is abusive and goes beyond the questionable practice of one sided licensing conditions they currently impose that say purchasing their software doesnt include ownership but the right to use.
There are other issues in that the cloud may prohibit 3rd parties from gaining access to supply addons that can compete fairly not unlike Microsoft bundling IE.
This would fall foul of European regulators in particular. Perhaps France’s national competition regulator Autorité de la concurrence would be interested.
No doubt after some corporate gamesmanship in the courts lasting some years DS would be forced to open up their cloud servers to other suppliers and face fines. Could be an interesting test case.
For those who cant see this situation is potentially abusive consider this random example:
A model of car is very successful in the market and sells 1.6m units worldwide.
People are generally happy and use their vehicles daily and are dependent on them to get to work and so forth. Sales are never better. In fact they are near there projected peak.
Suddenly the manufacturer announces it will no longer make spare parts but will instead retrofit a completely new and different engine that is specifically tuned to run on cow dung in the quest of caring for the environment.
No details of the engines performance are known. It may run faster or slower or the running costs may be more or less however what is known is that the cow dung is only available from one outlet in each city and you will have to queue for it. IT people call this latency.Other people probably just call it inconvenient…
The manufacturer will have the engines installed by the fully trained personnel of their service group exclusively and you will pay for the engines use by the km payable in advance.
As a bonus the manufacturer offers to take over your car entirely and lease the whole thing back to you so as to make your messy life as easy as possible. No one will be forced to get the new engine but no new parts will be made. The manufacturer is confident the market will decide to take up the offer. 😉
How much profit is enough? DS have made a lot of money out of SW despite paying for a license from Siemens. There isn’t any threat to that success going forward.
There are no shortage of improvements that could be made to SW. The only obstacle to development is DS protecting Catia. Other vendors will continue to improve their programs in a competitive environment and incorporate useful technology like CFD on gpu. DS will rub their hands together thinking about their guaranteed income and do as little as possible.
You rather get the impression DS has moved away from being a CAD provider into the class of slicksters who funnel their money through the Cayman Islands.
Certainly when you have a CEO trying to fit up SWwith an iTunes, Google, Skype or Facebook model or features and making out its vitally important then there is something really spaced out going on in his head.
Somewhere along the way the success and striving for endless growth assumed a life of its own and became a desire for immortality.
Unfortunately we are relying on a board to remove him who probably can’t see beyond maximising dividends either but he has to go. He is caught inside a perverse corporate game .
CAD users everywhere should resist this type of corporate seizure and exploitation.
Unfortunately this type of endeavour has become the scourge of the age.
Ok, but who says that online version of SW will be different than desktop. It is same software on diferent platform-cloud (example; is it DraftSight on windows different than DraftSight on Mac?, of course not). SW V6 will work on desktop same like on cloud. Reason why SolidWorks Company relase SW V6 is not cloud, it is new kernell (no sense to pay kernell to rival Siemens for every license). Cloud will be usefull in some cases, like CFD, FEA computing where you need powerfull computers.
Developments are not stop, they are small because mild range softwares are riched top level. If they will be much beter, they just dont will be mild range. Only Inventor can continue biger develope because Autodesk dont have beter software like Dassault Systemes (if you need beter than SW, buy Catia or add in options from gold partners, that is DS answer).
I agree that some development that are connected with cloud will be bigger than in desktop (CFD, FEA online analyses), but that will use about 15% customer.
I dont belive that people on SW are that stupid that kill SW with cloud.They just watch customer reactions after cloud presentation on SolidWorks 2010 World.
And on the end, dont forget that SolidWorks is not just software, it is community of millions people…
I missed the part about Solidworks N!fuse cloud system promising not to corrupt, lose or distribute “your” data.
Well I signed up for the DSS passport and had a look around, came accross these two posts.
Clearly shows what their real subscription model is, and what they plan to do with your data if you dont pay.
Draw your own conclusions!!
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Capture-1.JPG[/img]
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Capture2.JPG[/img]
@matt
Amen Matt. I currently use 2010 and 2011 for two different projects and I have to say I’m not missing one single thing in 2010 as compared to 2011. On top of that the “what’s new” for 2012 isn’t really getting me excited either. So that would make a minimum of two annual releases (2011 and 2012) without any significant new CAD functionality.
@Josip Jukic
Well, that’s one way to look at it. Another is that development is going to stop on the desktop, and if you want new developments you’re going to have to move to the new version. The development on the current version has already mostly stopped, at least for CAD functions.
This disscusion dont have sense. I dont know whay people talking about something which dont will hapend. SolidWorks V6 will be great tool and cloud technology will use people who want it. It will never, never, never, never… replace desktop application. SolidWorks Company will not force you to use it, it will be one more customer option.
Just listen CEO of SolidWorks in this video on 26min:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3BbfGb-Al4
Anna Wood is a computer guru, she is an expert and knows exactly what she’s doing.
Devon
@asdf
Are you even serious?
@asdf
The i7 is designed for overclocking – check the specs of many very reliable, very well known workstation specialist companies and see that they offer overclocking on i7 configurations. In any case professionalism is judged by service, not by the quality of your hardware. I know plenty of very unprofessional agencies who overcharge customers, chock full of top end Apple kit….
Peter, I agree. The per-use-as-needed availability of things like software, hardware, or computing power would be nice to have. However, as we’ve seen with things such as n!Fuze and even obligatory payments to VARs, SolidWorks generally doesn’t provide any sort of true a la carte goods/services. Frankly, biting off three or twelve months of access at a time (instead of a true per-use or per-day/hour/minute) can quickly drive the costs right back out of availability to most customers.
I’m an independent industrial designer. I wouldn’t survive very long if I acted in a similar way with my clients. “Need a project done? No problem—I’ll charge you for five projects! A project only took 30 hours? Well, unfortunately, we have a minimum of of one-month blocks of time, and you were slated for September. As of tomorrow, we’ll need to charge you for October as well.”
We can all see how ridiculous that would be in the real-world market of customers free to obtain services they need from those offering the best value. What we consistently see in the case of the CAD market, however, are “values” of goods/services that could only be foisted upon captive customers. No other options. A bit like being trapped by a monopoly. That tends to get customers all warm-and-fuzzy feeling toward such companies. In fact, I’m getting all warm-and-fuzzy toward SolidWorks/D’assault right now just thinking about it.
overclocked computers in anna wood’s case?
what kind of professionalism is that?
One thing that would be useful and that I would pay proportionally more for would be the ability to rent third party plug ins for SW (many apps actually). The first one that comes to mind is one of the revers engineering plugins for use with CMM. We have a Romer arm with an old copy of PC-DMIS which we almost never use. I would love to have the use of the arm to generate data inside SW by can’t even dream of justifying nearly 2 times the cost of a seat of SW for a plugin that I might use 3 or 4 times a year. And I know engineers that would love to rent time with more advanced analysis plugins etc.
I couldn’t resist.
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3rd-time-week-cat-suck-large-msg-115401337539.jpg[/img]
I think that remote online CAD services are useful. As users we should connect with other users that have the appropriate skills and processing horsepower. I would want these services to be operated by skilled users that will get good results. Say, send Anna a Soldworks model and have her work out the renders. Real jobs need more than GHz processors. Real intelligence is required. CFD is very complicated, Solidworks Flow does not present the quasi-steady state surface pressure distributions as I would like. It needs at least serious post processing.
The software is only part of the problem.
I look forward to creating a phony large company and leasing licenses to people at $100 a week.
Another excellent post Matt. Your analysis makes sense.
Thanks, Devon
I have never have believed that the cloud was anything other than an MBA CPA managerial method to justify forcing higher income from captive clients. The scant example of “benefits” happen for only rendering as far as I can see.
I just bought a Dell 1600 off the refurb site. E3-1270 Xeon, 254GB SSD, Quadro 2000 and for another $95.00 I have 12g ram. Oh, I forgot to mention this was for appx $1,400.00 total. It does everything I need and quickly. Please tell me again someone why I need to have an overly complicated and technically impossible solution across an infrastructure not controlled or having guaranteed throughput by any software company who offers such a thing. As you point out Matt my total costs over three years for the box and $1,500.00 x 3 for subscription is $1,966.00 per year for a full version of software. I can spend as much time as I wish training myself or others or creating parts and the price never goes up and I don’t have to be online with a T-1 hookup and a voodoo doll and pins hoping today the cloud magic will work. My files are mine and never had to leave my secure world for the insecure internet one. IF I really am unhappy with my software company I can stop paying them yearly fees and continue to use my permanant seat, where the vagaries of forced version updates and patches don’t occur by the way, and continue to make money.
There is a famous film from the past where two steam engines were run head on into each other. Lots of paying customers were in attendance to watch. Today we have a new modern set of tech train engines on the same track and they are now accelerating towards each other. The only problem with this paying group of customers is that they are riding in the car behind the engines and there will be no walking away from this one unscathed.
I am quite certain that Lemmings, if they could talk, would be convincing each other of the wisdom of the cloud as they sailed through one after jumping off the cliff. It’s really not the leap that is the problem for them but the unavoidable reality check at the bottom is a different story.
@solidworm
Actually CAD in the Cloud in the 1980’s was a reality. Almost all of your 3D modeling systems used dumb terminals hooked to a mainfram computer somewhere else. It was so freaking slow and you were completely reliant on a DEDICATED network for it to work. Productivity jumped tremendously when going to standalone workstations. Now we hear talk of returning to that concept, but now over shared public internet networks… Scarey!
OK so maybe we should try to help them out rather than take the piss out of a difficult situation.
Here’s an idea that occurred to me today.
I call it for want of a better label ‘SW Market’.
The idea is that SW becomes modular again, not only in functionality but support.
SW users will buy a base program as now and either buy or rent additional capability and secure such training and support as they require in the first instance locally but potentially globally if there are no local providers.
You would have the option to download say CFD from your VAR to your PC and authorise and time its use by live internet connection or alternatively upload your work to a cluster service they or someone else runs somewhere.
Essentially everything would be available to you in this way including 3rd party stuff.
If you wanted you could download or install from dvd every extra program out there for say SW2012 but those would only be available in student mode unless you verify and pay for your access through the proper channels – most likely your local VAR would handle the money side in the same manner they take subs.
The whole releases extended functionality would continue to be available for you without having to upgrade if you stopped with the base subs.
You only are paying for base and the actual use of what you need.
It would be up to those who own the code or run the cluster to granulate and negotiate their deals to suit their type of service and the customers.
Some services are by the minute others by week…
You could find service providers through a ‘market search’ in a SW Market browser. You might locate all render farms within 200km or such, available for the next 3 hours, or all CFD experts who speak English for tutoring and are accredited as having secure encrypted anonymous access.
As part of this ‘SW Market’ there is a file swap and conferencing facility, jobs board and business networking/collaboration facility and business listing/advertising, 3dcontent…
etc etc I hope you follow..
At their leasure DS provide online CAD via the browser to those that prefer or need it along much the same market model ie. it extends what is already in place.
I think this is a situation where they can’t get down cos they never considered they might have to.
DS management only know up. Down or across is not an option in the corporate success manual.
I think they will saw and ‘let the ground decide’ if they are to survive or not…
In real companies like HP someone ends the standoff with a chainsaw but here I suppose we could hold out a blanket and all yell ‘jump’ and promise not to move.
As a last resort perhaps we could try to coax them down with a tin of cat food? or a saucer of chateau Dassault?
If they could implement CAD on the cloud in 1980’s that was brilliant. with todays cheap and powerful computers it’ll only make things harder instead of easier. at least for most of the users. To me,its like owning a calculator, with its brain on the cloud. then when you want to add 1+2, you need to connect your calculator to the web. what the heck!