CAMWorks 4 SE, Cart Before Horse or Horse Before Cart?

I have always been for CAM integrated with whatever CAD package you have as being the optimal work environment. Of course I was excited a year and a half ago to see Camworks at SEU2012 and see the first fruits of what was to come. Now in general what I post on is what interests me that day or currently. What is of interest right now are the questions I have been getting about CW4SE. These are questions from prospective customers who turn to me for answers because quite frankly it seems as though Geometric can’t be bothered to give updates on anything. If a VAR point-blank asks them for information they will give it but in my conversations with VAR’s it is only after the VAR calls up to get an update. There is no effort I am aware of to distribute information on a regular basis.

I have asked before for updates and I would post them and help the information to get out. I have talked to some of the wheels at Geometric where they have asked me to help promote CW4SE and then give me nothing to talk about. Now I don’t know what their ideas were there compared to mine but here is my take on this. Sugar-coating things or not reporting things is good for them perhaps but my first loyalty is to other users. Those individuals who have to put a big chunk of their own time and money into these software products and can ill afford to buy something just because someone want to sell them something. At this time I have quit asking because if the interest at Geometric to promote this product is so small they can’t be bothered to communicate I am not going to either. SO, here is your official update given to me by Geometric.

On ————— we are ——————- and ———————– so then ———————– and finally ———————————————————————————————————————-.

Now what PR genius figures this is a cogent marketing procedure? Who decides to try to sell a new product by slamming the door on update and news? I know for a fact that Geometric is looking for people to do tool libraries, multiaxis posts and work on Glovious among other things. The Indian head hunters are looking so if you are qualified and want to work for Geometric a bit there may well be jobs there at least temporarily. Now I have all kinds of conjecture to write if I wanted to because Geometric does not say squat about things but I am not going to at this time. I will say however that no news is bad news because it starts questions in people’s minds and turns off potential buyers.

So does the Horse of open communications and publicity pull the cart of CAM software for Geometric or does the cart when it is finally full shove the horse down the hill to the wreck at the bottom. I choose this analogy deliberately because how can anyone expect to sell a lot of something they never talk about and barely promote. And then when they don’t sell and they look at the money and time to get that far and I bet they will start wringing their hands over poor me at the bottom of the hill with the cart piled on top of them.

I think CW4SE is good software in general. It is cumbersome to learn with unintuitive work flows and a Tech Data Base that gets in the way as much as helps until you spend a bunch of time to learn and then to configure it.(They should take a long hard look at HSMWorks for easy to learn and good workflow.) Or do as I am going to do which is work around it until I have time to set all the stuff up for the Auto Feature Recognition stuff. Along with the complexity comes power though and I know a big chunk of my irritation with CW4SE is learning some weird no machining experience programmers ways of doing things. Just like the transition from Ordered to Synchronous is. You sit there and mentally torture the idiots that did this to you until you finally cross that Rubicon and it all starts coming together. I will say though that the tools and the work flow ARE vestiges of years gone by and I don’t understand why Geometric refuses to take care of this stuff that IS a real and unneccessary part of CW4SE. Or if they are working on this why they won’t say so.

Which leads me to this. I get asked the same questions again and again and I am going to post these here for Siemens and Geometric to see and let us just find out what the answers are. I can’t answer what they wont talk about and I am not asking again for answers.If they don’t care I don’t care either. I was told in June to expect assemblies in September. Last I hear was they would be in December when the next CW4SE release was supposed to happen. Now I hear it may be January. What a bunch of junk and who knows what is really going on.

Are we going to get all the features that SW users have and if so when?
When will assemblies really actually make it into CW4SE?
What Post Processors are there and do they cost money?
What is the cost? This is so stupid you guys. We all know you have a “retail” list you can post and you have no idea how irritating this is to prospective customers.
When will EDM be done?
What guarantee do we have Autodesk will not buyout Geometric/Camworks?
What guarantee do we have this software will even be there tomorrow?

You know what Geometric, you get what you think is a dumb question like the last one and wonder why. The potential customer asking looks at today’s CAM market turmoil and fears why you have nothing to say. Just how much time does it take to send periodic email updates out?