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I guess in writing this I have made a decision. I have come full circle and I find myself back where it all started, namely the best software you have never heard of. Here we are just days before SEU 2014 and the totally incompetent Marketing and Publicity departments with the Four Stooge’s combining from Siemens the top Marketing and Publicity incompetents and the cluelessness of Jon Fox for a powerful and deadly body blow to the user community and the future potential of SE in numbers of sales of seats. What first brought me here was complaining about the very same things I find myself complaining about today. For some years now I had entertained real hope things were going to change. On the technical side they have and SE is the best midrange MCAD program out there along with finally a true integrated CAM partner. But this social side of it all still reeks of the foul odor of either people who could care less about SE and it’s future or outright gross incompetence.

Some time back I had written a post on “SEU 2014 No News is No News” The purpose of it was to be a pre-emptive strike against incompetents Like Jon Fox and force him to actually have to do something. I was sent a letter that stated that if I wanted to be on the inside as I had been I needed to stop writing these types of things which were harming their attempt at building a brand name. Out of respect for the individual I did. But I have to admit the first thing that popped into my mind was what brand? Did I miss something here? Out of respect for that same individual I now address the same topic and let the chips fall where they may. I have very little desire to be a part of something that is doomed to fail unless big changes are made. Sadly I do still care and I care a lot. I care enough about what is going on to come right out and say can’t you guys see you are destroying any potential for SE to be #1? I understand that threat to not be a part of the “inside” is real but remember my primary loyalty is to USERS of which I am one and a failure to fix this long-standing problem is of far greater concern to me than someones opinion of me. In this day and time where sycophants are so easy to come by and real honest input is not, if honesty is secondary to hearing the glad handing and falsehoods about how well things are going from the sycophants take me off the privileged insiders list.

This is why I am not going to SEU2014. I am going to work and take a little time off and ignore an event that will have many more Siemens employees attending than actual users. I am privy to the numbers and it is appalling. What really got me going today was looking at Novedge again and seeing a continuation of week after squandered week where nothing much is made of the premier annual event for SE. Folks, if it is not showing up at Novedge it is not showing up anywhere and what I said about the incompetence of PR and Marketing is not only true but has now produced exactly what I feared it would and the indisputable truth is in the numbers.

Three years now and two of them with regional summits where interested people cared enough to attend. If there was a lick of sense in the idiot PR&M (Public Relations and Marketing) departments this would have been the nucleus of user groups across the country. Instead this data just sits and rots. Which brings me to another point besides outright incompetence which is after all so capably manifested by the four stooges. There has been basically no change in the status of users outside of the Universities. There are some VARs who are doing great work with information and reaching out but Siemens itself is a big fat fail. I figure that when the final numbers are in of actual USERS who attend the Nashville event from two years ago will have been the peak. however in the mean time these clowns can waste days talking about what should be the approved background color for the official Siemens website.

There is another idea that has been floating around in my mind for some time and it is not all bad either for the users. But it is a wretched thing for the potential for SE to have explosive and technically well earned growth and a thriving user community. Talking with an ex SE user last week and he came right out and said he could confirm my idea to be more than fiction. What if Siemens bought UGS for their own manufacturing ecosystem and their sole concern was to have best of class software for their own purposes under their total control? I can see that this would by and of itself be a more than adequate reason to buy UGS. It means that if you want to have software that is designed for manufacturing by a manufacturing giant that eats it’s own dog food you are in the right place.

What really puzzles me though about this is that I thought profit from any division of a conglomerate was desirable and funds and management would get behind an area like SE that has such potential for growth. Instead we get things like jackasses saying stuff like why should SE users be treated any differently than NX PLM World users? These Siemens people genuinely can’t see that different markets mean different strategies and no one size can fit them all. By math I have generated here before I figure these guys have saved limited budgetary expeditures on advertising and cost a ton of profits as a result. Penny wise and pound foolish. Quite frankly if I was an industry analyst I would be paying attention to this myopic treatment of SE and wonder just how many other areas of huge profit potential these same individuals in PR&M are costing the corporation in other areas to. Is there a point that can be reached where a company becomes divorced from what made the companies they buy out tech leaders because they are to big or to hide bound? Or smothered by self serving bureaucrats whose main concern is paychecks and fiefdoms?

After SEU 2014 I will have some other things to say about all this but for now I just shake my head over the management of Siemens that can’t see how they are enabling significant failure to utilize the profit potential of SE. For whatever reason. I fully expect that within two years if nothing changes and the current PR&M people are not fired and replace with competent individuals who are empowered and directed by upper management to prevail against the market the Universities will be a thing of the past. A fading but fond memory of SE users just as the Summit from 2005 in Cincinnati became to SE users for years.

A, you can’t take people and strategies that do not work and do the same things again and expect the miraculous to happen. B, You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. So what is it going to be Siemens? Are you going to fix it or do we play the dirge for what could have been and should have been under rational profit seeking hungry owners? I for one am thinking that this mess is just not worth my time and effort to support. I make no money from this and I am not an employee and your attitude has managed to take one of your biggest fans and destroy my desire to be anything other than a silent dues paying customer. Have a nice time at SEU 2014 and look at all the Siemens employees around you that far outnumber the users and remember that it could have been thousands of users with a sprinkling of Siemens types and your user base could have been the largest. But hey, at least I am eating the same dog food as is used in the Siemens kennel and that is not all bad.