Now I have to admit that Dassault is my principle target here as they get ready for the SolidWorks 2014 End of Life convention. And I intend to help them along because I think any company that propounds the cloud as a solution must be stopped before the contagion spreads everywhere. Picture Charles as he cavorts across the stage once again with his ubiquitous iPhone or iPad. You know, the ones that you will be able to take your two foot wide fresnel lens to so you can adequately view the screen on this wonder of tech art as you design from remote servers anything imaginable to man. I wonder if the rock these guys live under was designed within the auspices of the 3DExperience group think community, but I digress. Now don’t forget you Autodesk customers, fearless leader on your side of the fence intends to go here to.
A better title may have been NSA TAKES pieces of your mind. I want you to go here.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-30/how-nsa-hacks-your-iphone-presenting-dropout-jeep
Der Spiegel is not exactly a rumor clinic nor is what they are claiming being denied by NSA or that idiot Obama. Snowden has been a remarkable source for just what all is wrong with the cloud in so many ways and here is another.
I can’t think of any polite way to say this and for those of you who like the refreshing Kool-Aid served up by Dassault read no further and disregard the earlier. But for those rational beings who make a living based upon the IP they create with SolidWorks I have a challenge. Don’t you think it is about time to get a little bit in your face at the 2014 EOL convention when the pabulum is served up? Don’t you think it is about time these Dassault guys stop evasive talking and start giving written commitments to you users? To state how they intend to make you secure when EVERY device that goes online is being hacked and whacked? And let me say that this goes for every company that wants to force you to the cloud.
Now do you honestly think that NSA has the only talent out there to do this? That no other government or agency or criminal enterprise can do this? The utter contempt these Dassault and Autodesk etal executives have for you and your future staggers the imagination and you better start seriously fighting this mess or build a life raft.
I suppose the next step for these chattel cloud execs is to push the “private cloud”. Here, let us take the LAN you already have successfully implemented. We will re-label it as private cloud plus make it more complicated and make it so you have to pay us each month to use your own stuff. Sounds like a winner to me.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
End of Life Convention?!? Wish I’d thought of that myself. Funny.
Maybe it will not be End Of Life but rather a vegetative state on the ventilator until users pull the plug. Hard to put that in a snappy title though.
Frankly DS could slap a typical SW user with a dripping wet red herring on all 4 cheeks and they would politely thank them for it.
I expect there will be a well attended Afterlife Convention for SW2015 as well….
Hi Neil,
SolidWorks still does the things these guys are familiar with and there is a comfort zone there for a while. The real hints ought to be clear this year with no big new deals except Mechanical Conceptual CGM cloud bliss. Assuming they make their third supposed launch date. Charles won’t be able to help himself and so he will brag on all the new stuff coming up that has nothing to do with the jobs most users have providing little comfort there too. I think this is the year it will dawn on many and a bunch will drop maintenance soon. Why pay for improvements to everything but what you use?
What makes you think SolidWorks is nearing end of life?
Evan,
https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/dassault-solidworks-management-is-crazy-are-you/
Words from the mouth of Charles and there is nothing significant about SW for the future except as a buried part of some 3DExperience ecosystem.
https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/the-new-normal-or-the-rudderless-ship-you-pick-which-fits-best/
Yet another year passes and what has changed. Emphasis on many things besides SW and users left wondering where their stuff they paid for is. It will be worse this year.
https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/corporate-stability-philosophy-and-your-cad-dollars/
What I think is driving the move away from pure geometry at Dassault.
Dassault and others talk. http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/5651/Chuck-Grindstaff-on-how-Siemens-gets-the-core-of-PLM-right.aspx
SW is a small footnote here and the emphasis is once again to some ecosystem thing. SW and pure geaometry creation is secondary to the main new social media whatever.
Charles indicates that all Dassault products will work off of CGM and not Parasolid.
Now here is the deal as I see it and perhaps I should say SW as we know it. And no it will never go away completely any more than ProE did. But the driving force that made these programs great will go away and is going away. That is what I mean when I say end of life. A moribund program that stagnates and user count atrophy. Have you ever walked into a business and sensed something is wrong? You ask questions and find out that key people are leaving and there is an autocratic top down we are always right and you are wrong management philosophy. And clearly the vision that began the company has changed along with the departure of those talented individuals that had that vision.The people who work for you and buy from you who were willing to get out there with news and endorsements of what you were doing and the exciting new features and reason to be a part of something are not saying much anymore. There are conflicting statements about direction and the top says one thing and those under say another. The list of new functions in SW dwindles each year recently although people are still paying for these things. SW still has no evident desire to create a powerful direct editing side to their program and indeed pretend this hardly matters or exists on their own website. Why is this powerful tool not there in much greater degree? I believe it is costing them money and their answer is to move to the CGM kernal where I suppose some sort of additional capabilities exist. How many programs these guys have boasted about for SW in the last few years get hyped and then crash and burn?Can they even finish these and if not why not? More departed talent? Matt Lombards blog Dezignstuff had numerous posts on this topic and I can find some of his pold posts archived but not the whole blog itself so I suppose he pulled the plug on the SW side finally. But he and people like Devon Sowell who were BIG proponents grew discouraged over the direction and they stated many times why.
We will know a lot more in a month or so with the SW 2014 convention. Do you see anything that indicates some sort of coherent plan from France for SW as it has been known?
Evan you best ask your friends at Belmont(OnShape) when you next visit if they think SW is terminal. 😉