http://www.3dcadtips.com/understanding-dassault-systemes-3dexperience/ Author Evan Yares. If you don’t read Evans posts you might consider taking a look and I certainly recommend them. Quoted below from his post.
“Taken from the Dassault Systemes website:
Dassault Systèmes has entered a new phase in the evolution of how we bring value to our customers – moving beyond PLM to deliver holistic, 3DEXPERIENCE to imagine sustainable innovations capable of harmonizing products, nature and life. Combining social innovation capabilities, realistic 3D Virtual experiences and intelligent search-based technologies, Dassault Systèmes is pioneering a new technological wave: a 3DEXPERIENCE platform to serve the social enterprise.”
Pardon me if I am a little dense here but what the heck did CHARLES just say? Haight Ashbury had its heyday in the 60’s and someone needs to tell CHARLES this was not a stellar business model.
Autodesk has now entered the cloud holistic software “EXPERIENCE” thing along with DASSAULT. These companies share the same problems they can’t control and both offer up vague promises never spelled out in binding written contracts. Neither of these companies can guarantee a single thing except billing statements and additional layers of newfound problems for buyers over infrastructure they neither own or control. Oh, and you can bet this will end up costing you more in many ways over time as an additional special incentive to go there. Drink the Koolaid before you go and bring your checkbook.
Scott Sheppard writes replete with all the required corporate speak buzzwords and phraseology. At least here we are spared the all caps thing DASSAULT loves so much.
“Autodesk approaches strategy in a two-part process: Strategic Intent (“where we want to go”) and Strategic Realization (“how we will execute against the intent”). We are focused on The Autodesk Experience — How do all of our products and services work together in the cloud? As part of this, we spent A Year of Learning Dangerously where we learned a great deal about broad disruptive changes impacting the industries we serve:
( I can provide a translation here for those of you wondering what he said. They had planning sessions on how to implement a paradigm that would take away autonomous permanent seats of software and replace it with data captivity and pay to play and make you think you were really getting something really cool and beneficial. Intent means you backwards looking Neanderthal type customers who want to control costs and security.)
1.Generations – Although a generation gap used to reflect a 20-year biological span, in terms of technology, it only takes a 7-year age difference to see a marked delta in how one generation uses technology versus another.”
(OK so what does this mean in practical terms? We are supposed to cater to a group that thinks it has a right to spend half the day online with “social” media and then pay them to do so rather than doing what they were hired to do. You think I may be exaggerating here but talk to Human Resources and see if they don’t figure that to hire many young people you are expected by them to allow access to frivolous time wasters on-line.)
“2.A Shift To The East – Emerging markets in Asia and Africa are where manufacturing, construction, and media activities are moving.”
(OK, I don’t live there and I don’t plan to move there. You want me as a customer sell me what I want not what someone else half the way around the world hypothetically wants. This is just as dumb as Al Gore saying the Europeans spend $8.00 per gallon of gas so why shouldn’t we do the same.)
“3.The Age of Access – Society is moving from only requiring access to products instead of owning them.”
(The people I know want to own not rent. They want to be free of the dictatorial controls and uncontrollable costs renting brings. More corporate speak PR BS with no empirical evidence offered to justify it. Now maybe we are heading into such perilous economic times that renting is all some people will be able to afford but I bet almost everyone in that boat would rather be an owner.)
“7. Infinite Computing – The economics of computing are such that latency in the design process can be dramatically reduced by using banks of computers in the cloud.”
(Sigh, where do I even begin with this? Let’s try this. OK Scott let me help you guys out here. This uses the internet right? Do you guys own and control the internet from the server farm to my phone line access point? Please explain to me this infinite stuff and how it will be infinite over what you don’t own or control? The economics of computing in the real world dictates a workstation or server combining CPU and GPU capabilities operating autonomously off of the problem infested internet. Staggering capabilities are now available for under $6000.00 with no dependencies on any external internet choke points or security or data ownership problems. And as an added bonus I get to use the versions I want to use and not what someone like Autodesk decides I get to use.)
At the end of the day what I buy is a tool and not an EXPERIENCE. At the end of each year assessing what the cost and money earned with each owned major tool has been. I bought a Haas VF4 to cut parts quickly and efficiently and not to provide an audio-visual mechanical EXPERIENCE in my shop. I buy software to yield results not to cater to some nebulous corporate concept of EXPERIENCE. Whatever that happens to be on any given day dependent upon the latest iteration of trial balloon wisdom floating up from the corporate mountain top oracles.
I have a novel approach you cloud guys might want to consider. You want to sell something try doing so on provable merits. Along with written guarantees and clear definitions of who owns what, how it will work reliably and securely and better than what I can do for myself and not the lies and deceptions currently offered.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
Amen
I bet you have a dooms day bunker.
Your so negative and your probably running pirated software
Scott Jones you inspired me to comment when there was no need because Dave already knows my views and that, in the main, I agree he is correct about that which he has said.
It would behoove you to take the time to think before you speak. You have accused Dave of acting illegally and speaking negatively and in doing so it is your word no recorded for a long time and making you look the fool.
If you disagree with Dave, act professionally and put your argument(s) else, leave your comments in your head were they will do little to damage, to you.
Scott,
OK I am negative but it is justifiable based upon the behavior of Autodesk and Dassault. Could you enlighten me as to what I have said that is incorrect? This is your chance to respond with worth while commentary before I consider banning you as being a troll with nothing of substance to contribute here.
I have been in this industry for 25 years, and I have heard all the arguments in the past.from people like you.
1980’s Only mainframes are capable of running CAD
1990’s Windows will never be a platform for running CAD
email is not secure. I ask how many files have you emailed lately.
You make comments on how bad the cloud is, but how much research have you done. Maybe there are holes today just like there where for other technologies. I love the idea of having lots of computing power to do more complex designs. These are all valid. I have followed comments you made about the cloud and you never once talked about the potential.it can provide to small companies.or even large companies.
Pay to play as you stated it, Well you pay monthly for Cable TV, telephone service, cell phones. Hey i bought the phone why doesn’t that give me permanent usage rights.
So i ask do your research as i am doing and report objectively.
Scott
Scott,
What specific industry do you work in? If you will go back and re-read past posts of mine I give references and web sites that are the basis for my reasoning. Files I may or may not mail do not change data transfer rates that can never get as good online as what I have on my workstations. So, for the purpose of CAD creation which is still mostly or completely single threaded there is no way infinite power at the other end on a super duper cloud based server farm with infinite computing capabilities will benefit a single threaded application. It can never do better than a tiny fraction of the speed on my workstation. Can you or have you disproved this according to your research and would you mind sharing your evidence here?
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2011/01/41questionsaboutthecloud.html
This is a link that brings up many questions above and beyond just pure computing potential. The cloud has a lot of problems besides the fact that it can never beat an internal system for speed or security. Funny thing is that the people who want to sell us this stuff have no proven products to show us and they refuse to answer any of the questions posed here. You will not be able to disprove them either but you are welcome to try.
I do have a permanent seat of software with both Solid Edge and ZW3D. I suspect you are not a cad user or you would know how this works. I don’t have to pay another single penny to keep using these programs as long as I can maintain a computer that will work with them. I don’t get any updates but if I am happy with the program I don’t need anymore either. I can use these ten or fifteen years from now and never spend more to do so. So yes I do have permanent rights and that is why they are called permanent seats. The cloud based CAD would take that away.
Other than a generalized comment like loving to have massive computing power is there a specific program or application for CAD you could point to that can benefit from a server farm? FEA and Rendering are two there have been some cases made for but not CAD.
I would be interested in your research and examples for your viewpoint so please post them here.
I also own several CAD applications, SW, Inventor, Proe, all are needed for my business. I need to stay with my customers so the latest is important to me. I hate the fact that proe is sitting dormant right now because most of my projects are in SW and Inventor. So i long for a pay as you go model. We don’t know for sure if it will in fact be a pay as you go model.
I also hate the idea of buying more ram to handle the large assemblies.
Will cloud end the whole idea of simplified models and shrink wrapping to open it, I hope so.
If you are happy using older version then great but my business cant afford to be on older versions. Having unused products sitting on the shelf, just so i can say i have them. Is not good business.
Yes this cloud stuff is new, but so was Parametric Modeling in 1988. All kinds of work arounds have been developed for dealing with the ever growing models. I just want to create and not have to worry about how much detail to put in a model or assembly. I think the cloud will get me there.
I’m interested in your approach and focus Scott;
Paraphrasing and applying your leading paragraphs into my situation;
I also own several CAD applications AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical & Inventor Suites, all are needed for my business. I need to stay with my customers (some of which are training instututions) so the latest is important to me. I hate the fact Inventor is sits mostly dormant because most of my 3D models, drawings and training use AutoCAD.
My AutoCADs cost around 40 cents/hour and the Inventor 94 cents/hour whether I am using them or not. Quite often one, two or three of these will be running simultaneously whilst i’m juggling customers projects in an overlapping fashion; that ‘s a common day for me. It is imperative I have total control over the cost & timing of my access to these tools.
So I do not long for a pay as you go model: juggling those programs all at once in the cloud and handling the cost/hourly charging is/will be a nightmare.
For the moment ignore licencing, security, access & ownership issues, if you, “So i long for a pay as you go model.”; Scott paint the business case you see as a form of evidence you have thought CAD in the cloud through as thoroughly as some of us have.
Scott, Part of the price of doing business is that you will have idle equipment at times. This is factored in and becomes a predictable part of overhead. Once you cede control to someone else you lose this. Look at the iPhones when they first came out with the unlimited downloads. This quickly went away and was replaced with high fees per gb past the data caps. End result is that even though the iPhone is not in use most of the day it is now costing more than it used to for the same capabilities as when it was first released.
I understand the problems of looking at an asset that sits idle and still you have to pay for it. But can you not see this is the bait? These companies that offer this stuff are not charitable operations and they are looking at how they can make more money off of their existing and potential customer base. Not one of these companies have an actual system proven with all real costs you will incur and guarantees of future cost containment so you can budget accordingly. All they are offering at this time are promises with no real world proven examples. Find one actual proven in use today cloud for cad program utilizing the programs you own that has spelled out a single thing?
None of us here deny the value of new technology and I bet most of us online look for new tech that will benefit us. But that is the problem you see and I think the reason for our differing viewpoints. We are saying that as it is today it is impossible to work as promised, to be secure and efficient and cheaper than what we can currently do ourselves. I think you are looking at the promise of the technology and basing your comments upon that. At some point in time it may be that this will work and even do the things they promise but that is years away. I think you are looking at something you would like to have and all we are saying is at this time it is not there and furthermore it is impossible to be there for a number of reasons.
If nothing else alarms you consider the ND agreements you have to sign with your customers. Legally you are responsible for that data’s security online or in any other transmission from from your hands. Not one of these cloud companies will sign one with you because they know it can’t be made secure online.