OK SolidWorks users just as I have been promising you the End of Life nature of Dassaults commitment to SW as you know it can’t be made any clearer. Out of this chaotic corporate nightmare comes something so far removed from what made SW great that it is hard to imagine. In an understandable state of denial for many, as who wants to believe that your years of loyalty and financial commitment to a product was not appreciated, the shroud of hope for the future has now been ripped off. The ugly screw you mindset from France cant be any clearer. Is there any question now why Mark Biasotti left just before SWW2014?
The BIG deal this year is Mechanical Conceptual. A product that will cost $249.00 per month to use, no permanent seats. Updates and control from the Dassault side and it will for an undefined amount of time work off of the cloud and Dassault servers ONLY. So now Dassault recognises the value of direct editing as the last major MCAD group to do so with a product that won’t play well with SW and you cant own it. There are no trials of this and you have to sign up for a year to see what it does. Spend $3,000.00 and you get to see what is in it. The CGM Kernal is not compatible with Parasolids and I suspect the only way this will be made to work is with another addon from Dassault to allow for round trip translations. I believe that Dassault is being duplicitous in so many ways here. For example, I can’t find anywhere any kind of statement to the effect that the data you create and store and use through their closed Dassault ecosystem can be independently saved AND USED outside of their subscription model. I believe they salivate over pay to play and they intend to do it to any who will sit still for it. PROVE me wrong Dassault and legally clarify in binding language what your business model here really is.
Here are some links from today. Tweet streams of interest, use these to lead to others and get a feel for what people think. quigdes.htm alistardean.htm
and ScottWertel.htm are good examples. If you click on these tweet streams a month from now don’t expect to see them.
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2014/01/what-the-media-tweeted-about-solidworks-mechanical.html
and
http://solidsmack.com/cad-design-news/need-know-solidworks-mechanical-conceptual-future-solidworks/
I find in particular the SolidSmack post to be of interest. There can be no more evasion about what is the future of SW unless Dassault loses so many customers from this that they decide to relent. It has been my opinion for some time now that Dassault intends to move away from the CAD centric business model and to try to follow the Google, Facebook and Twitter models to quick wealth via some social thing. I am not sure they care at all if SW users leave over time just as long as enough of them stick around to fund the new way. From 11-20-2012 I wrote https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/dassault-and-now-autodesk-experience-software-on-the-cloud/ and in part it said the following.
“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.”
What is the emphasis on?
Back on 10-22 2012 I wrote
https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/corporate-stability-philosophy-and-your-cad-dollars/
Read this and tell me where I am wrong.
At the very least Dassault looks like they are going to go alacart with new programs you will be forced into over time as they phase out SW. (Really, do any of you with any sense after SWW2014 think this is not the goal?) It will probably be somewhat like a franchise model where you never get to own it and everything will cost money and you have to buy your goods from official sources. The holding company will tell you when you have to upgrade the storefront and and by when and what it will cost. You can only use franchise approved products in your franchise store. This will be manifest in ways like this. I expect there to be announced data limits with both throughput and amounts of data on hard drives whereby a small allowance will be quickly exceeded by many and the by the gigabyte charges will kick in. I used to think it was strictly about ending piracy of Dassault products. And it may have begun that way to but then those clever MBA CPA types figured out there were many ways to make money if you could force people into a closed loop ecosystem with no exit. So add social mediazation of the product that will be marketed as franchise only and never to own. There are just so many ways to force your chattel labor to be in debt forever at the company store and looky at this, you even get to sell data from your chattels to outsiders making even more money. And you can bet when they do so off of you there will be no kickbacks. Your reward for sticking around.
OK SW users. It has gotten a lot darker now and what you think is just a cloud between you and the sun is not. It is a giant French guy who is squatting right over you and your package is on it’s way.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
He-he-he, bit of a ruckus out there.
DS find themselves in quite a mess.
I could add stuff to it but I wont waste my time.
The gotchas were anticipated 3-4 years ago.
If you were awake you have been preparing for eventualities.
Its a nice sunny day here, might sit in the garden and enjoy a beer… 😉
Yes they are. I would imagine that after all the flack Matt Lombard got from all the SW shills he is feeling pretty vindicated right now.
Is your last comment a reflection back to the Pink Floyd, The Wall Cartoon?
Hi Ryan,
Not familiar with the Wall cartoon. I was just looking for a polite way to describe the four letter object headed for SW users.
That is exactly what was in the cartoon.
Hi Dave,
have you watched this video?
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/3dexperience/solidworks-mechanical-conceptual-overview.htm#
Hi Neil,
No but I will have a look in the next day or two. I just tried looking and it would not play with Firefox.
At this point I think the best thing to do would be to admit the wrong direction pubicly, remove Bernard and Monica to appease investors, and then announce SW will be devolved from DS control. The marketing of SW can go back to what was successful but perhaps with a timely little refresh to convey a rededicated and crisper mission. DS can sell Catia lite as their own Catia in the cloud solution to the near top end user who wants that. At SW we need a spring clean and refocus on the mid range customer and their real needs. SW the business needs to be run with a US mindset to return confidence to the staff, there needs to be a re embrace of genuine innovation and serving engineering as as a way of life, and an updated business model to satisfy its customers. SW the program needs to go forward bravely as a pleasant to use technical tool and adopt new technology in appropriate ways. It needed all this yesterday but if it doesn’t tackle this now there is unlikely to be much of a tomorrow. Will DS prove mature enough to fix their mess?
Neil M,
I had a look tonight using a video on Youtube I think is the same. Some of this looks interesting. I don’t know if there is an equivalent 2D movement mockup thing in SE. I don’t recall this anyway. I am of course a big fan of direct editing so it always looks cool to me.The social stuff looks like a reincarnation of aps already out there with other programs and certainly to be had at much cheaper prices.
But what I really see is a well rehearsed simple part in a controlled environment with every step of the way meant to look cool and flawlessly easy to do. I think all video guys try for this when they are showcasing a new product. It kind of reminds me of the vice like assembly that is favored as an example of direct editing like SE did with ST1 and ZW3D did with their first stuff in DE. It looks cool and is not prone to failure. The real test will be when this program has to step out of the laboratory and into the real world of users and real world internet problems. We shall see.
One thing I do know is DSS has a lot riding on this and they better start getting something right or they are in big trouble. They are not starting off well here with insistence on cloud only, steep rental only costs and only on DSS servers can this be run. And the idea that there is no trial period and you have to commit to a years worth of payments to see what is in it is pretty sad. DSS is in such a state of flux and confusion about what they want to do that I would not be at all surprised if they come up with a few more variations before release for rent on pricing and the rest of the details before it is out to the public when enough outcry is given over what they say right now. I don’t think this was well received by loyal users at SWW 2014.
Some thoughts here. You can take a good technical program and kill it with costs and restrictions and problems inherent to working over the cloud. And even using their own servers will eliminate very little of these ISP issues. There has been such a huge track record of short lived and failed program initiatives with DSS and SW in the last few years that they are going to have to prove these new things out over time to regain credibility. They are also going to have to convince people that these are not flash in the pan disappear tomorrow programs. And of course how will it all work with SW? And I wonder about file sizes and does it grow in complexity with each edit? Lot of unanswered questions.
Mech Con is technically interesting in ways with a really bad launch and little foresight in marketing. This is not a good way to start and is an indication of DSS and SW in general as a company without a cohesive plan or regard for loyal customers expenditures over the years.