The CAD Platform: Yay or Nay?

Each time CAD evolves onto a new delivery, we see an increase in the volume of CAD tools available and an increase in those using them. When CAD moved from mini computers to mainframes to Unix workstations to PCs – until now. We don’t see the kind of scaled adoption of cloud CAD that we have seen for these other historical switches. I think the answer to that is not as simple as you might want it to be. It’s not just because high speed internet access is not yet as ubiquitous as it would need to be for that kind of adoption, it’s also due in part to the nature of the market.

The CAD market is made at least in part of engineers – these are people who like to make things. They are lower on the consumer scale than people who buy cell phones. Much of society likes to buy stuff that’s already made, prepackaged with nice tutorials and handholding and spoonfeeding. Engineers may still have some of those qualities, but they are less so than the population at large. Engineers like to build. Optimize. Select. Specify. Best in class. Assemble it yourself.

PCs give you that option. Windows too, to some extent. But what really applies here is the ability to buy your CAD, then get your FEA and your CNC and your PDM. Mid range CAD in the ’90s was definitely this ala carte sort of shopping. It was even sold as a “best in class” solution. Get all your preferred tools and put them together. This was the concept of the Gold Partner program with Solidworks, right? You put it on your computer and you used the programs you wanted to use together.

How often is it that all of your preferred tools come from the same place? Just from a statistical point of view, it’s not very likely. In fact it’s very unlikely.

But as the model grew, of course they had to change it. SolidWorks started accumulating partners. Rendering. Library of parts. FEA. PDM. You can still buy 3rd party applications that will function with your SolidWorks, but they want to bundle it for you.

And now as we are being nudged toward the cloud, what do you think is going to happen to all of those options, that freedom of choice? Right, it’s going away. V6 and subsequently the 3DXperience (and the 3DXperience SWYM forum – contrasted with the user driven cadforum.net) is being sold as a platform. You know, like an oil rig platform where you go and live for 6 months, and they provide everything you need to live for that time. It’s like the company store and captive mining towns all over again. It’s more than just a different way of doing business, it’s almost a political philosophy. A real lack of independence. And it’s not just on CAD vendor pushing this platform, if only one did it (like Adobe), you could just avoid buying those products, but it’s all of them. Siemens seems to have avoided pushing Solid Edge down this road, but NX does have its complete line of offerings.

The farmers market where you walk around to various farmers and buy the best stuff that each has to offer. Or the giant corporate supermarket, where someone else has already made your selections for you, from the lowest bidder.

Things go in and out of style. Or as the song says “Engulund swings like the pendulum do”. Or something like that. Mainframes and terminals were once the big thing. Then with the advent of Windows NT, a business/technical OS, the mainframes were usurped by the individualist “Personal” workstations and PCs. Now after the web has matured for 20 years, we’re headed back toward centralized control. I think people keep getting the CAD market confused with the cell phone market. They are not the same. You can’t treat engineers and design professionals in the same way that you treat gadget consumers.