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Today begins SEU 2012. Not really sure what to expect except good things for the software and hoped for things with integration of peripheral applications like CAM. Certainly anticipating there to be a push towards being a complete manufacturing solution but how far advanced this is and what is entailed is not know by me. I have guesses but no solid information.

It is my opinion that two things will happen in addition to improvements to SE the program in the very near future. ST5 will see the MCAD side of SE pretty well becoming a mature product. Left of course is all the freeform complex shapes modeling that the remaining ten percent or so of the CAD world want to see before they will seriously consider a move towards SE. I would think you could book this for ST6 for sure but imagine some of this stuff will have found it’s way into ST5.

The other will be the integration of applications with SE. Siemens is a manufacturing conglomerate that bought UGS for a purpose besides just having another cash producing subsidiary. While one may not be privy to what corporate boards are deciding you can observe their actions and determine where they are heading. I believe that Siemens has bought UGS to bring a piece of the complete manufaturing ecosystem into play where they can directly control the result. As such I fully expect that SE will very soon announce integrated aps with this in mind. They are going to do this. There is a legacy problem with getting this  going so while I am getting impatient for results I do not doubt the direction. Many of you know I have been chomping at the bit for CAM integration.

As a user I bought SE because I could see the potential in ST. This choice is validated every day I use this program in its functionality. The secondary benefit which was unintentional when I bought into SE has become just as important when I look at the quandary others are in with primarily SW, the program that was in contention with SE when I bought. I know these SE guys and I know the direction they are heading in is all about geometry and making my life easier to design well and quickly with my own created parts or with those from other programs. I still get a big kick out of sitting down and editing imported SW parts faster than the SW guys can. It really is hard to refute the power of ST when it is done right there in front of you. As of yet no stupid cloud imbecilities and we don’t have irrelevant redundant silly things like more photorealistic rendering programs touted as new features. All we get is real geometry creation tools and in my opinion what could be better?

How long do you intend to be in business? It is prudent to buy the software of a forward-looking consistent planning for specific purpose from a software company that is providing tools you need. Compare this to a company Like Dassault who is trying to figure out what they even want to do.  There you are the guinea pig as they try the flavor of the day and see what will stick to the wall. None of this by the way seems to be based on an actual list of user requested problem fixes or enhancements. Look folks, this Bernard nut is never going anywhere as he owns to much of it. You stay there you are stuck with his version of what you need  plus the cloud plus kernal change. There is nothing there that indicates your ability to plan for the future with a good roadmap you helped to plan as a user as far as I can see.

Autodesk has just announced that their stuff is migrating to the cloud. This means that for any serious CAD design company Inventor now becomes off-limits. Unless of course you don’t mind giving away your IP to online hackers. There is not one company out there that will guarantee in writing your IP safety on-line so if you have to guarantee this to your customers you can’t use a program that forces you on-line. Dittos for Dassault’s stuff.

I fully expect there will be a fundamental shift in the MCAD world. Truly it has already begun but with ST5 and the policy of users first Siemens is bringing to the SE table this shift is going to become a flood. SE is the way to go for some really powerful reasons and they will in a few short years be the leader in numbers too in addition to being the technology leader. ST’s flavor of direct editing will increase user efficiency and eliminate the old bugaboos of imported files headaches. Those companies that were hoping your legacy file issues would keep you under their subservience have got to be more than a little worried.

Welcome to Nashville and ST5 where the future has concise direction and best in class tools for geometry and where a software company is actually listening to its users.

“Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee has reported.A year-long probe found 1,800 cases of fake parts in US military aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee said.

More than 70% of an estimated one million suspect parts were traced back to China The failure of a single electronic part in any military plane could pose safety and national security risks and imposes higher costs on the Pentagon, the report said”

http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Counterfeit%20Electronic%20Parts.pdf

OK, served up piping hot for our enjoyment today from the Cloud All You Can Eat Buffet! One thing is for sure at this bistro you never lack for variety.

I have been an opponent of Chinese manufacturing philosophy and goods for some time now. It is a society that has been taught that imitation of form is good enough and function of form is secondary. It is a society that has been taught to make money quickly by any means possible because tomorrow your communist overlords might begin another Cultural Revolution. It is a society that believes that theft is far better than research and IP from others is fruit for harvest however and where ever.

The pigeons are coming home to roost now and the true costs of MBA CPA prudence of manufacture by cheap and don’t worry about where are just being discovered. First gut your domestic manufacturing base and then gut the quality because once the factories are gone and your venture capital is on foreign soil you lose control. The Chinese are willing to take the gifts of IP and technology to be copied in every process moved there.

Please consider the idea of counterfeits. If the military is being compromised you know there is big time trouble. I have maintained for some time now that when our manufacturing went to China we gave them the ability to put back doors into EVERYTHING. Notice we don’t stop doing business with China, we can’t anymore. Our factories are gutted and gone. So everything becomes a game of cat and mouse where the best that can be done here is to try and catch enough of the compromised electronics so the Chinese can’t cripple us to badly. We have gone way past the point where we can remain unscathed and China will one day use these back doors for more than just corporate espionage. It will be used to attack infrastructure, finance and the military when they decide it is time for whatever reason to assert their authority over Asia and who knows where else.

So for dessert today the Chinese are serving themselves “Cloudy Delight” They build almost all the components going into Amazons secure cough cough server farms. It goes into the routers and your workstations and your company’s cell phones. Yes it even goes into those most fabulously secure virii and malware proof Apple products. I wonder just how many fishing expeditions go on every day over the internet into every company with a connection and no one is the wiser. Except of course the country that fooled our genius managers into cheap cheap cheap.  Could you prease turn you iPhone tiny bit? We need a better picture of you factry/monitor.

Remember this the next time one of these manufacturing cost cutting efficient new way of management cloud sales blurbs comes your way. If the parts marked Xeon 3690 really are that on the inside is that ALL that is on the inside? We have a whole government who sponsors this stuff and they mean no good. They actively help this along and conspire with legions of hackers and use equipment and tech our MBA CPA short-sighted idiots gave them to beat us with. How do you stay ahead of the thief if he is the one you hire to build your locks?

If you are a responsible corporate manager you have an obligation to your company, share holders, country, creditors, really just anyone who relies upon you and your products to keep all your important information offline. And with a complete disconnect from the internet and no way to get on either so dumb employees who think Facebook and Twitter is a workplace right can compromise you.

Look everyone, are you going to believe self-serving statements from those who wish to profit off of you with no regard for your future or are you going to open your eyes to the clear and present danger. Cloud is not secure and anyone who says so is flat-out just a liar.

The proof is in the pudding so to speak and there is not one ISP, server farm service, software author or infrastructure equipment provider who is willing to stand behind the service they want to sell you and guarantee security. NOT ONE!  ANYWHERE!. If I could put a volume knob on this paragraph I would because I just don’t understand people who don’t get this. Like Autodesk and Dassault for instance. Go ahead you wonderful people, sell your customers design software and then force them to give  away their design data for free on the cloud after they pay you for the privilege.

If this sounds like a rant today it is. I just hate it when we are not satisfied as a country and as an industry to shoot only one foot and we proceed to look for a stool so we can sit down and shoot the other one to. With Chinese bullets.

I don’t shop at Walmarts anymore and step outside of the China supply chain wherever I can. If it says import in the MSC catalogue or China it is no sale either unless the import is from a country like Spain or Poland. May I suggest you do so to?

UPDATE So I am reading tonight and run across this and in part I quote.

“Direct bidding is open to a wide range of investors, but as a matter of general policy we do not comment on individual bidders,” says Matt Anderson, Treasury spokesperson, in a statement on the matter.

In order to accommodate China, the U.S. Treasury Department had to upgrade its computer system to avoid hacking attempts.

“It’s also a big mistake to let the world’s arch cybercriminal direct access to Treasury’s computers,” says Gordon. “What is Geithner thinking? He should know better, but then again he always lets the Chinese walk all over him.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/geithner-thinking-treasury-grants-china-direct-access-buy-143939103.html

Why do we bend over backwards to promote this? From Autodesk to Geithner. Why don’t we just give them the keys to everything and just become indentured servants? Snuggle up tonight in a fluffy warm fuzzy blanket and keep your teddy bear next to you and sleep well. You ARE secure on the cloud.

Sometimes I wonder if readers get tired of reading about the same topic. In this case CAM for SE. Bear with me readers as the one most weary of this topic is the author. It is baffling to me how myopic companies can be towards the future and I found myself today at the HSMWorks forums reading and pondering.

I have looked at HSMWorks and CAMWorks this past month. When you have to earn a living and try to evaluate two programs at the same time what you really achieve is nothing more than a cursory examination. I always get a kick out of sales guys that act like a month is sufficient time and they just don’t understand why you can’t or wont make a decision at the end of thirty days

They both have their pluses and minuses and one in particular has yearly fees way out of line with industry standards. One is simpler to use out of the box and the other has I think better potential tool paths but it will take you longer to get there in programing time. Simpler really is better assuming that you still have a good cut path when you are doing small runs or one-offs. HSMWorks seems to get better user reviews on a more consistent basis and some shops right around me use it and say very good things. I have been refered to a couple of shops that use CamWorks by the VAR but I am always suspicious of VAR referrals for obvious reasons and have found no local Camworks users on my own yet. So off I go today again looking to see what is up on the forums.

The following is in large part what I had to say there today RE HSM and SE but I think it applies to any prospective CAM partner. The first into a partnership with SE stands to gain a lot over time and since SE has stated publicly they are looking it is just a matter of time.

It is a self-limiting viewpoint to say that SW is the only thing worthwhile in the CAD world. Look, Solidworks is not going to go away but they are going to be relegated to the same place ProE is. A once great company that lost their direction and now relies on legacy seats to preserve income. Not much growth there. Solidworks is in the same boat. Going on three years now with little improvement and an effort to port the program to the cloud which has not gone well in implementation or with user perceptions. Declining sub rates demonstrate this as fed up users sit on the sidelines. And of course we have the kernal problem. You guys are sticking your heads in the sand here if you think you aren’t going to have some serious rework to do to port to the “Catia” CGM kernal which is going to be the new SW way. Development for SW with parasolids is dead and I believe all money is going to the CGM stuff. Why is this? Parasolids is developed by Siemens/UGS. In the parasolids kernal are a number of things that make direct editing, or Synchronous Tech in its SE iteration, work well and it is not for sale to competitors. This is straight from a conversation I had with Dan Staples. So we have the technological red-headed step child SW stuck into a kernal that will not allow for direct editing in the comprehensive and capable way SE and NX have implemented. Direct editing is the way of the future and it is starting to eat into Dassaults market share in a big way. Yeah, I know blah-blah-blah 1.8 million seats of SW but what they don’t ever split out is how many of those are professional paying customers and how many are all the rest. Real paying customers have begun the migration away. Check out Matt Lombard’s blog Dezignstuff and see the anger for yourselves at the biggest SW blog out there. Check out ANY blog for SW that is not from corporate or a VAR and tell me what you read. You really want to rely on SW for your stable and hopefully growing income future?

OK, back to the kernal. You already have developed for the parasolid kernal. You are way over half the way there to implementing HSM into SE I would imagine. It is the proven world leader in cad kernals and as a big plus has the best direct editing capabilities. It is foolish to ignore the company with the fastest growth in real paying customers. One that is beating the pants off Dassault this last year and a half. And I know for a fact that SE is willing to partner. They have publicly stated their desire to develop working relationships and you can bet someone will walk through that door. It could be you.

There is no logical reason not to begin a liaison with SE. I can see there is some comfort in living in the current world of SW as it is what you know. Perhaps there is fear of upsetting your ONLY customer. I can see how that might be a bit frightening as all of your eggs are in that troublesome basket. But that is your biggest danger too isn’t it? You are wholly reliant upon a company that has no fears when it comes to doing things their SW customers are screaming and hollering about and don’t want. You are wholly reliant upon a company that really has contempt for its SW customer base and is not listening so just what regard do you think they will have for you guys?

I am truly baffled by this adamant refusal to join with the hottest thing going for mid range MCAD. Perhaps your competitors will see things differently. If they do that window of cooperation from SE will dwindle for fence sitters as after all, once it gets going and people are beating a path to their door, they won’t feel so compelled to be so helpful will they.

So what exactly and really are the reasons for HSM Edge not to be on the front burner right now? Just a thought here. When the SW user base is confronted with the translation problems that will exist in the change of kernals ( I think done in large part to implement direct editing on a kernal they own) and users are slammed with being beta program crash test dummies for years on end until the direct edit and translation problems are worked out just how many will drop out of this pending inevitable mess? This does not even get into the cloud balloon these nuts keep floating and if this technologically impossible to deliver upon thing happens in conjunction with the rest you will be sorry you have elected to rely solely upon the Dassault products to float your boat.

I always did like the Jeff “Death RAY” Ray story. I think he was the most honest of them all. I think he was serious with his “when the pain is great enough they will change statement” Has there been any indication this is not the Dassault corporate direction for users since that time?   So I pose this question for any CAM authoring company  employee who may read this. Would it not be prudent to make a move from moribund to morexciting and morepotential?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/copyright-can-t-block-software-reverse-engineering-court.html

I have to wonder if Dassault building such a large building for “SW” in Waltham, MA was a hedging of bets. If Europe is going to strip IP rights from software would it not make sense to take some of your eggs out of that basket?

These things don’t occur overnight and I wonder if they had an idea this ruling was in the offing.

I suppose in some ways this possibly is an effort to stop companies like Apple who seem to want to compete not so much in products but in the courtroom by suing competitors to prevent viable alternatives to their overpriced goods.

But like almost all socialistic central government planing it will go way to far and not stop expanding. Kind of like Homeland Security here in the USA that our honest politicians said was meant only to fight terrorists and is now doing things like raiding flea markets for counterfeit goods and sending armed swat teams to arrest sellers of unpasteurized milk at organic farms in  The Peoples Republic of California. No I am not making these things up, Google it and find out for yourself.

I hope all you big government socialist Obama Democrats, Bush Homeland Security voting Rino Republicans and EU Diktats authors are proud of what you want your children to grow up under just because you want to shove people around today. What was it Obumer the radical racist Muslim Kenyan said about using any crisis to further the goals of socialism? Seems to hold true for both Europe and the US. Destroy intellectual and actual property rights and you are most of the way there.