Dassault 3DExerience, You have to buy it to find out WHAT’S IN IT

First off I want you to read this. http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-803.htm Ralph has some things to say about Dassault and this will affect SW. I think it is appropriate to talk about the future of SW users in light of what is going on.

I doubt any of you forget the utter duplicity and treachery of Nancy Pelosi stating that you have to vote for Obamacare to find out what is in it. I find it pretty staggering though that a corporation like Dassault would pull the same stunt. But here you are and after this whole conference was done no one knew details nor what the costs would be. Charles can’t tell you because either A, it is so bad they are still figuring out how to finagle you into it or B, they have yet to put the pieces of the puzzle together and how do you price something when you don’t know what will be in it. Neither option inspires much confidence. Companies operate with yearly and longer budgets and I highly doubt they are going to be willing to say to Dassault just send us a bill when you figure it out and whatever it is we are good with it.

There are so many ambiguities in his comments that my jaw was just left on the table and not soon drawn back up to proper position. Whole futures are being shot down and security is not adequately addressed nor even a hint of Dassault guarantees that this will be secure with indemnification for customers as proof of their confidence in their own product. And the utter fraud of them even trying to guarantee throughput FOR THE WORLD except China. Well he said they would monitor everything whatever the heck that means. Maybe they won’t guarantee you connectivity but they will give you a report on how rotten it all is so that when you sit there and stew over your bad throughput and the unproductive days that result they can confirm your 3DExperience. I suppose this would be another one of their “modules” they will charge you for. I find this so absurd that words escape me to properly describe this delusional idiocy. Promises and glowing reports on things for which they absolutely refuse to release any real world studies to prove actual work environment efficacy.

And it will all be out of your hands to so be prepared to feel the love when the latest update fails and you can’t do squat about it. There are just so many things wrong here. I am not going through any more of this list because I know you readers who peruse this article from Ralph are going to come up with a big list of fail items on your own. But the arrogance of Charles to even say these things like his SW users are too dumb to figure it out.

The philosophy of the company that you choose to do business with is important to your survival, your profit and your future. You have years of legacy data and signed confidentiality agreements and moving anywhere is a problem in so many ways. So most of us think long and hard before selecting a software company to deal with. But is this a really true statement when SW is the program under consideration? It was years ago when it was usurping ProE. But when they proved themselves over time and they became so large most did not put them through this selection metric anymore. SW was the gorilla and ubiquitous in many places and why would anyone look any further was the thought of most new customers I would say. Of course many of those who created this paradigm have left or they were shoved out because they refused to conform to a new way they felt was not going to work.

“We have changed in two years the company, from being technical-oriented to business-oriented,” explained ceo Bernard Charles.”

OK SW users this is where the rubber hits the road for you guys and you are now at the cross roads and your time to vacillate about the fantasy of SW as you knew it being there indefinitely is over. I interpret this statement to mean that the technical reason for a technical design program like SW to exist is going to be held hostage to some sort of business oriented ecosphere which is supposed to be rolled out this month. Curiously this is the same month that SWW 2014 happens and not so long after Biasotti has left the company adding to the long list of departed talent. And again no one really knows what this thing is they just hear PR jargon and word mash ups but no beef in the burger. No building blocks, no examples that relate to real world users. Just hyperbole. I think you are a bit foolish if you are ignoring all this and I fully expect SWW2014 is going to bring a serious jolt of SW End of Life reality to many. I am truly grateful to be an observer of this and not a participant.

It was not on my radar when I bought Solid Edge five years ago to consider things like this. I was like many except I did go through a more thorough selection process than most and arrived at what worked best for me after research. I did not buy something just because it had the largest presence in mid range MCAD. But watching the sorry saga of mistreatment of SW users for the last few years now makes this a very serious consideration in what I will use. Fortunately at this time as Ralph mentions Siemens and SE have no intention of morphing their responsibility to you as a customer to produce efficiently and to be able to plan long-term without software worries. I know a lot of these guys and sometimes I sit here and wonder how this could be but I do. I see and hear absolutely NOTHING that alarms me from Siemens or SE.

Some of the things they do in marketing make me mad and I think they have three near total incompetents in charge of it but the technical side of the program is focused on geometry creation and empowering users to do so in ever better ways and not on some nebulous cloud ecosphere fantasm like Dassault is forcing upon its users. I have no serious complaints about the program and expect to be happily able to stay here for the next ten years or so.

By the way speaking about marketing and publicity I want to take a moment to say something about John Fox. I used to think he was the source of these advertising and publicity problems but have concluded recently he is not. This is my public apology to him but sometimes it is hard to figure out who is to blame. I have concluded that there are some individuals in Siemens that are total roadblocks to progress and you can read about them here. https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/marketing-and-publicity-for-siemens-plm-software-fifth-semi-annual-update/ They deserve to be slapped on the way by whenever I can do so and I intend to do so. They are monuments to the idea that entrenched useless corporate bureaucrats can and do exist and whose apparent main skills are navel gazing and circular logic and to survive and get paid to be hindrances to progress. What I don’t understand is why some big shot from Siemens does not grok this and correct a problem that prevents greater profitability.

In any case tune in to the SWW2014 End Of Life convention for more updates from Dassault and the enlightened Mr Charles the Mad French Man as he perfects his ability to speak many words and say nothing concrete.