Tag Archives: Dassault

Good Management and Good Ideas as Hard to Catch as a…..

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 8 comments

I am finding it hard to stay away from blogging. Perhaps it just gets under your skin in ways that are hard to stop. But in any case the reason I began my public commentaries was severe irritation over how things were being run under Siemens with SE. I still find I get irritated and still have things to say. It is not quite right to just post comments on others forums or blogs and so this blog seems to continue. Reading things today online prompted today’s post as I pondered the rarity of qualified people and the result of this. The rarity of good ideas and good management. Here we have Corporate Managers and Movers and Shakers chasing good things with invariably poor results.
marketing ideas pig chase

Worthy of mention here is the maxim that the buck stops somewhere. I think that considering how ineffective Siemens marketing is at least where Solid Edge is concerned and knowing some of the leader ship of Solid Edge I can only conclude one thing. Their hands are being tied by corporate leadership above them who do not see any advantage in explosive growth. My opinion is that SE was bought as part of a package and that Siemens really does not care what happens here. The only thing I can conclude here based upon what I have heard and observed through actions taken is that Siemens is taking profits from SE and using them for other purposes. Perhaps to make less than stellar balance sheets in other divisions look better as they aggregate all profits and throw them into this Siemens gray corporate bag of ambiguities whereby success can be punished by having their generated profits skewed sideways to cover for those less capable.

Make no mistake here if Siemens decided to allow SE sufficient funding out of the money Solid Edge earns on it’s own merits and free reign to do things right their profits as a corporation called Siemens would be better and the subset called Solid Edge would be dramatically better. And it would be completely self funding from the proceeds from Solid Edge. But they don’t because somewhere some MBA CPA type idiot has decided that his prudent management metric should prevail over logic. Please note here that no CAD or CAM company was ever started by an MBA or CPA. Please note that no MBA or CPA has cut chips or designed products as coders or workers and they lack true insight into both what it is they manage and how it and their customers function in the real world. But somehow these disconnected gurus of fiscal wisdom get to dictate to those who know their products how things will be. Remember when leaders of tech companies used to be engineers? They were people who could and would over-ride bad policies when they saw them as being detrimental to their products. But today we have 90 day windows of MBA CPA placation of institutional shareholders and logic and prudence are out the window. So we have a generous helping of Corporate Siemens stupidity where SE is concerned as once again SE is plundered by MBA and CPA types whose last concern is for their paying on the ground customers. I know SE is profitable but I believe capital that is generated by SE is once again being syphoned off to do CYA for corporate interests. It is kind of funny how things work. A sales guy is promised a 10% commission on his sales. This is fine until he reaches say a million dollars and then all of a sudden he is only worth 5%. So the MBA CPA idiots break their contractural promise and a great sales guy leaves. The CPA MBA idiots then start over with the sales guys list and a new guy who gets the same promises. Repeat and recycle and you have the environment SE operates in. You can only show so much profit before we come in there and take it from you.

By the way, for those of you who email me with comments. Karsten Newbury is NOT the problem and has never been. It is those above him. It is entrenched Siemens corporate policies and things like Marketing and PR departments that do not answer to him and he can’t enforce change upon. Personally I would hate to be in his shoes. A brilliant product with a tremendous world beating potential run by a guy with industrial degrees who understands the product and its uses who is relegated to also ran status by those who have no clues but own the shoestrings. He has been a true firewall against dumb policies and I dread the day they finally run him off. And they will if this continues I fear. Can anyone say SolidWorks Two? Dassault eventually ran their bright people off too.

This is the only thing that can adequately explain to me why SE languishes in never never land and is not #1. The tremendous technical capabilities are now as they have been seemingly since the beginning. Sold down the river by those who have no clue of the gold mine they own. I struggle to think of a term here for leadership that has the best gold mine out there according to provable reserves and yet insists on turning in third rate results because they refuse to allow the mine to buy self funded new mining equipment. Looney bin logic #101 as a prerequisite before admittance to MBA CPA #101 I suppose.

Now this is quite a sideways shift from the above but what started all this today was going over to the Ironcad site. They send me tons of emails and today for the heck of it I went there. And for the heck of it I went to the partners section as considering the goofy implementation of this at Siemens controlled SE I wanted to see what Ironcad had. So I have a look at their solution partners and I see

Ironcad

ProCam 2 has as it’s newest web listing something from 2006. Visualmill is on version 2014 and I figure V4 is probably six or seven years out of date to. Once again website gurus strike right to the heart of the matter with complete and accurate information as an example of their dedication to their jobs. I think there must be a special source of bottled designer water these Marketing and PR people are force fed no matter who their employers are. And a minimum daily quantity must be consumed by each marketing or PR employee per upper corporate management directives so they can spout off things like 500% better and 200% quicker and 300% increases in productivity and never have to fear the burden of accuracy in whatever they do. Never have to worry about updating content or living up to promises. Siemens appears to be the predominate bottler of this fine product.

Sometimes I wish I knew less than I do about what goes on behind the scenes. There are things I wish I had never read. All this accumulated stupidity and inaccuracy and patronizing junk turned out by Marketing and PR at upper management behest just give me a sour opinion of the whole thing and it did not have to be this way. And it IS upper management because the buck stops there.

By the way. I am now going to refer to SE as Siemens controlled Solid Edge. If Solid Edge was left to it’s own devices and Karsten could run it the way he knows how to, without inteference from Siemens, it would be #1 in sales by now. So to commemerate the Siemens interference in what could and should be they deserve to have mention. Each and every time. Celebrate the failure of Siemens controlled Solid Edge as it takes it’s corporate assigned place in life anywhere but as #1. WAY to go Siemens. And stop sending bottled water to Ironcad. They probably would not appreciate it if they knew what you were doing.

8 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Siemens Marketing and Publicity Update 5-27-14

Posted on May 27, 2014 | 6 comments

You can blame Ralph for this post as my jaw dropped when I read the following in his latest ezine. But before we start in here is a picture from a secret spy camera somewhere in a Siemens parking lot as a Marketing or PR guy is driving in. It is kind of hard to tell which department he belonged to as they all look the same.

marketing guy arriving at work

Here is Ralph’s latest. A great read all the time on many topics and you should subscribe.
http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-820.htm.

“Re: What I Learned at Solid Edge University 2014
Thanks for attending Solid Edge University and publishing your article in upfront.eZine #819. I work in marketing for Solid Edge and just a couple of comments from me that may be of interest to your readers:

The Solid Edge Apps web page that you refer to is a new resource to help our customers find the most commonly used Apps by category (Analysis, Manufacturing, Standard Parts etc.). We are adding the most popular apps into this area right now and you are correct that there are just 30 or so listed here right now. At the bottom of the page is a link to “All Solid Edge Partners” and it is here that you can search on the 500+ technology partners whose software works with Solid Edge.

Great that you were impressed by the Create Sheet Metal from 3D Part capability, and we would agree we should have featured this more prominently in our marketing materials for Solid Edge ST7. It is featured in the “Fast and Flexible Part Modeling” video on our Solid Edge ST7 web page.
– David Chadwick, mainstream eng global product marketing
Siemens Industry Software Limited”

SO Dave, this Dave the user and not the marketing whiz-bang, what did you learn today reading the above quote from the esteemed Mr Chadwick? What I learn is that once again these people can’t be bothered to do their jobs. There are a number of reasons for this which I know but will not go into at this time. Any one of these, or all of these or maybe even some new monumentally idiotic reasons I may not be aware of apply here.

Suffice it to say that once again with a known convention date that presents a once a year opportunity better than any other by far to promote SE these guys fail to fix yet another website problem. LOOK HERE at all of our partners, 500+ of them!! Don’t you love it when you go there as Ralph did and see 30 some listed right now? And of course right now is heading into two weeks after what should have been a hard must make it deadline. I wonder how many of these are here from last year first off and secondly if they were at all worried about this there would have been more than 30+ even if they could not get them all in there. AND that number would grow rapidly each week until they were all there. Of course I digress because that happens elsewhere and not here in the land of never-ending meetings to decide web page colors. Clearly Mr Chadwick was not worried enough about this to do it in a timely fashion so the year’s best opportunity squandered again. For crying out loud my church just finished a web site and the links work and it is populated quite well and one person did it with a part-time effort in a few weeks. How is it that when Siemens M&PR get ahold of these simple things they never see the light of day?

You guys better wake up and realize that the brand you are making for yourself in the public eye is one of superior product and bungling navel gazing M&PR. Also known as the best software you’ve never heard of. Look people I have a serious question for you. How many times do you have to walk face first into closed doors before you begin to realize that opening the door first gets you farther faster and in much better shape? It will also allow you to take that big red clown ball off of your noses which is another great benefit.

OK I know this is hard for you all to understand but let me spell out why this is important to users who BUY your product. The larger the market share SE has the more we as buyers benefit from increased work that will come our way as a natural and inevitable consequence of growing market share. I said this FIVE YEARS ago and find it nearly impossible to believe I am STILL saying it to people who STILL don’t understand this. Oh, and you guys as a company will make more money too although I guess this must not be too important or else Siemens would be cleaning its dead wood out left and right.

Would one of you with some gonads please reply to this post and explain this situation to me? I want to try to understand this continuation of absolute and I fear deliberate evasion of duty to your customers and corporation to do what they and we have hired you to do. Really, I want to know.

From yet another secret spy camera purportedly in a Siemens M&PR meeting room where important decisions are made.

marketing decision process

A rather simple and elegant answer to determining what gets done. The Siemens gray color-neutral darts are labeled with cool to do M&PR stuff and the blindfolded guy whips it to the dart board which is invariably in the upper left quadrant of the selected wall as you face it. The tally guy writes down what makes it according to the points each dart gathers and this sets the agenda for the next meeting where highest scoring dart gets forwarded to a subcommittee for further study. This happens again for all the other darts until they all make it through the vetting process. Any darts that miss completely are discussed in another series of scheduled meetings where darts are labeled accordingly and launched with great hopes and expectations that these will graduate to the points category thus proving to themselves the great progress being made.

6 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Siemens Marketing, PR and the World of Never Never Land

Posted on May 10, 2014 | 2 comments

Reading the statistics here on my blog today and something that has been drawing more of my attention is this. Months ago, 10-6-13 to be exact I wrote a post comparing the direct editing capabilities of SE and SW. It has been BY FAR the most read post ever for me and still comes in the top three read posts every day including the new one if there is one. Many thousands of reads. Of course Larry, Curly, Moe and Shemp are to busy setting up meetings to determine colors on web sites and the next meeting and on and on. Way to busy to directly compete with those who should be regarded as competitors. By my reckoning and the number of reads the CAD world is keenly interested in a direct comparison where it is shown on the same part how things differ and how file sizes and complexities grow. These are what my numbers PROVE to me. But the symphony of crickets is the stiff upper lip of competition these people bring to the contest.

Meanwhile back in the chirping crickets department life goes on. In case you don’t know who the Stooges are read https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-destructive-siemens-corporate-mindset/ and add the fourth one Shemp who is Jon Fox to the list. As the social postmortem for SE goes on in my mind I ponder how people who are supposed to be planning conquests and growing market share and beating the competition can possibly be this inept and still get paid by the company they are sabotaging.

Funny thing about the sound of crickets. It is meant solely to attract themselves to themselves and has no other purpose. Kind of like what happens in real life with the Siemens crickets as they plan another meeting. Heaven forbid a multi-year cogent and properly themed strategy and multi-year dedication in serious time and money to the same. It would interfere with the meetings where the cricket noises prevail and life is never bad.

Wait till Autodesk gets ahold of these clowns with plans that span years and have serious effort in community and identity. A crummy product can still prevail over a great one that no one knows about. SE is doomed to third place if nothing changes here. The real choice is the color of granite on the tombstone unless Siemens gets smart and gets real and sheds their dead wood. Funny thing about dead wood. I go out for firewood and around the bottom of the pile there are always crickets.

These people do not want to win.

2 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Solid Edge University and the Lackluster Launch

Posted on May 9, 2014 | 15 comments

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.

15 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Nomination for Design Excellence

Posted on April 15, 2014 | 4 comments

There are times where you buy a consumer product that is so complete so innovative and so revolutionary in design that you are compelled to regard the genius behind such a thing in wonder. Here we have a common, well at least I thought it was commonplace item in most houses and many vehicles. A utilitarian device meant for both hot and cold climes and contents supremely purposed for YOUR satisfaction. Howdja like that PR and Marketing bit of babble speak there eh? At least I did not and nor did these wonder purposed universal utilitarian hot or cold multi-delivery enhanced designed containers purveyors state 200% increase over your current whatever. Be grateful for the small things in life which can mean so much when you are spared them. Ready to see this wonder of technology? Hint, it comes with a convertible handle and content containment device that will automatically work with the handles detente that allows for right or left hand use. Apparently there may be a third hand or perhaps even more ways too but I presume they have not fully developed a market yet for this and so just two hands are mentioned at this time. Please note that the picture shows the device in it’s left handle detente position.

RT or LT hand cup and manual

4 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reality of Cloud Throughput on Public ISP’S

Posted on February 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

It has been my premise that the cloud is not ready for prime time for a while now but actual studies done proving yea or nay for the cloud are hard to come by. I suspect the cloud people deliberately choose to avoid any proof of concept. Why the opposing side does not have more readily available information is done for a reason as they surely have had to do internal studies at the least. I think they know things they would rather not talk about. “Windows Secrets” is a newsletter I have subscribed to for some time and I recommend it to you. There are two flavors with one being free with abbreviated content and the other subscription for a minor fee with more content. This particular article was from my copy of their paid content and quoted here with permission. First off here is a link to “Windows Secrets”. http://windowssecrets.com/ And here is a link to the article of interest. http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/sorting-out-the-revolution-in-pc-backups-part-2/

The article talks about online backups and the speed with which this can be done compared to other backup methods. What is of interest here is the relative speed of a local LAN or an additional internal or external hard drive compared to over the public ISP throughput rates. We have all heard the silly claims about how the cloud will be much quicker than anything we could do for ourselves autonomously. Claims minus proof of course.
Data saving rates

Now I am not going to quote a lot here nor am I going to talk about methodology. The link to the article will put you in touch with a comprehensive explanation of what was done and why. Suffice it to say that there are a ton of people like me, the vast majority of all CAD CAM users I suspect, who have less than ideal conditions to work under RE data and ISP’s. The overall size of the files used for this study though is of interest to me because I can see data quickly reaching these limits when you think of CAD creation and updating and sharing between all related systems for an average days work at many major companies. The same companies who are major targets of this cloud initiative.

I fully understand the value of something that would automatically update file versions across a whole company reliably. I can’t sit here and tell you that some compelling arguments for some things to be done on the cloud don’t exist. But I can say that the infrastructure at this time and for the foreseeable future is not ready for these types of demands. And of course security which some tell me is ready. Empirical evidence in the form of daily stories about yet another breach or government sponsored intrusion into supposedly secure situations of course belies these claims.

Perhaps the most damning thing to me about this whole cloud idea is that those who propound this as the end all be all will not legally stand behind what they want you to use and they make no serious effort to produce any conclusive evidence with actual working scenarios to buttress their claims. Cost efficiency, unlimited cores for unlimited power, fire your IT staff and the rest and never a full accounting of the costs, of ALL the costs, needed to do this.

It gets back to what I was saying about the impressions Autodesk has given most all the people I talk to about their cloud intentions. If all you ever talk about is cloud this and that then why should I not presume that all you are going to do is cloud this and that in the future? In the same frame of mind if all I ever hear are wonderful claims for the cloud but somehow these claimants never produce actual case studies with all pertinent data over typical ISP conditions I have to presume they are hiding bad things.

Can any of you think of any other reason for such pervasive lack of real life studies by these cloud companies? If I had a bullet proof product I wanted to sell you I darned sure would be busy laying out facts and studies to sell you by and not just empty words of promises where the only concrete thing offered is price tags.

Leave a comment

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Autodesk May Be Off My Hate You List

Posted on February 18, 2014 | 2 comments

Just a short post on this today. All the publicity I have seen for some time for Autodesk has been strictly cloud promotion oriented. I have been having some rather lengthy conversations with Anthony Graves about CAM and Autodesk things in general this last week. He expressed some surprise that I thought Autodesk was going to just the cloud. He was quick to point out that this is not so and some prices over at the Autodesk site seemed to bear this out.

I have been told that in the near future publicity for Autodesk will not overlook this desktop paradigm and indeed it is not in their plans at all to phase this out. Seeing will be believing and they have to publicly start making mention of this as official policy with time frames for it to be real to me. I am impressed with Anthony and not only is he a first-rate eloquent and knowledgeable advocate for HSMWorks he is also one for Autodesk. He tells me it has never been the intent by Autodesk to go purely cloud for the foreseeable future.

Software authoring companies might want to consider something here. All of you. What is the message you are really giving to readers and seekers of knowledge? Do you wonder why your plans and intents are not being accurately perceived by the public? I have looked a lot for info RE Autodesk and the cloud and honestly this is all I hear about and it is the only future way of operating I hear about so just what am I to conclude? And if you mean you think the cloud will be ubiquitous and technical problems all solved in ten or twenty years but not now why not say it that way? And I am most certainly not alone in this impression. And then in addition nothing ever comes out from Autodesk to correct this idea many of us have. So if you persist in half messages I am going to persist in comments based upon half reality because you made it so.

Sorry Dassault, I am not talking about you today as I think you guys are truly wacko and sold out to some sort of social media group think CADCAM thing. This thing you hope will sell to enough of those kids with iWhatever tunnel vision blinders surgically attached to their ears and lives to the exclusion of reality around them. An alternate universe that will go Nova when their batteries fail. I can see the sweaty palms as panic sets in. Thumbs futilely twitching the device as fear of having to actually talk to someone sets in. You know these people as the ones at the restaurant enjoying their night out as each sits there in silence never looking or talking to each other with their eyes glued to their iThings. The Dassault future world as far as I can see.

In this day of the internet what you say and what you don’t say carry equal weight. Your poor message or lack of messages can sink your future just as surely as poor technical capabilities can and word WILL get out for better or worse. This word can be negatively and severely exacerbated by your lack of product improvements or your lack of correct or corrective information.

This of course assumes that you have a marketing department of quality to begin with to do these things.

2 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Autodesk Juggernaut Starts Rolling

Posted on February 12, 2014 | 4 comments

One of the things that started my sojourn into blogging was interest in CAD and CAM in general. This of course means interest in topics besides my CAD CAM flavors of personal choice and I have always watched what others are doing. The cloud has in many ways been tied for equal interest with software as it may have such a profound effect upon how we do business in the future for those who foolishly go there. The other side of the coin which was alarming to me and the single largest reason I have had for posting bad things about Autodesk and Dassault’s Solid Works was the idea that they were going to try to force the cloud upon users whether they wanted it or not. I believe that if this paradigm were to be proven successful that other companies would probably follow this path to if vendor and cloud lock in with forced subscription only models for these two companies proves to be successful. Other than that the software from these two is what it is and if they dump this cloud garbage I would not have a whole lot to say about them because at that time they would not represent a potential threat to my future anymore.

Today just for the heck of it I went to this Autodesk site. http://cam.autodesk.com/pricing

Autodesk Juggernaut

Now I have to admit that this is the first real evidence I have found that the cloud is not inevitable here contrary to the statements made by Carl Bass. It would serve him well I think to clarify just what really is going to happen here. But at least at this current time cloud and not cloud are available. But what most impressed me were the we want you as customers prices. And per comments from Autodesk regarding a question from Al Dean the other day that Delcams PowerShape had technology in it including Direct Editing that would be incorporated into future versions of Inventor.

Autodesk is gearing up here for conquest. Look at the prices for just HSMWorks on this web page and it is the same as the prices will be for Inventor HSM. Except that HSMWorks will be + your full price seat of Solid Works and I would imagine two maintenance payments per year. If Autodesk really does a good job of integrating direct editing and other needed capabilities into Inventor and they make it the equal of Solid Edge or Solid Works and maintain this pricing it will be hands down the value leader in mid range MCAD and CAM combos.

I like HSMWorks. The Tech data base in Camworks IF you spent the time to implement all the stuff needed to make it work will get you quick toolpaths on most of your parts. As a matter of fact it is the best out there for Feature recognition but set up is a fairly involved process. Volumill is the very best HSM strategy out there right now and HSMWorks does not license it so plus another one for CAMWorks. HSMWorks does not offer these two things but I have to say that for those shops that just want good tool paths quick to learn and not cumbersome to set up HSMWorks is pretty darned good. They also have their own version of HSM which is capable. A friend of mine close by has one of those pressure cooker job shops and he swears by it and does a lot of different stuff each day. To be honest HSMWorks was my first choice for integration with SE back when I was asked to look at CAM programs for possible integration with SE.

In this day and time with each dollar counting more and more I believe that if Autodesk keeps permanent seats available this combination of Inventor HSM is going to be tough to beat as value leader. Now I presume that they intend to make Inventor into being more capable. But even if they don’t it is still way cheap and for that kind of money many will make the choice to just deal with a cam program that is not fully integrated with their CAD as long as Inventor handles imported parts well. Retail on SE and CW4SE up to 3 axis + Volumill 3 axis + turning is now right at $18,000.00 or $19,000.00 and there is not too much to be had in the deal zone off of that. My maintenance on this duo is going to be right at $4,000.00 per year and I bet yours will be to if you buy this. I don’t know what a full five axis and mill turn seat would cost from CW4SE but I suspect it would crowd you real close to $20,000.00 just like Mastercam would and probably be $4,000.00 per year on maintenance and with the additional maintenance from SE would add up to $5,500.00 or more per year. I also have no way of judging the relative capabilities of HSM versus CW4SE when you get into 4 and 5 axis and mill turn because I have never cut parts doing this. The labels however say these two can do it and I can say that after a trial of HSMWorks I did about two years ago if the capabilities of the rest of HSM are as good as the three axis stuff was it is more than capable.

That rumbling sound from down the road and just over the hill where you can’t quite see it yet just might be the Autodesk Jugernaught heading straight for you.

UPDATE 2-14
I have been told that the maintenance for the inventor and HSMWorks combo is 11 or 12% per year. This gets back to the idea of compelling potential customers to consider you and to keeping customers as customers with reasonable prices. Money is money and as a small business man my bottom line is more important to me than Siemens or Geometrics. So we have for new customers with SE and CW4SE to get what I have will be $18,000.00 plus $4,000.00 per year and a cam program I am getting increasingly irritated with. I don’t think I like this TDB and I would rather have templates if I were to be interested in automation at all. I am hoping someone shows me how to work the way I want to work with CW4SE and I will be all smiles soon. Then there is the $9,990.00 price above for cad and cam and only say $1,200.00 per year and I get a cam program that does things the way I want it to. I have to admit to sitting here and thinking real hard about where my future money will go because the payback with this HSM stuff is three years based on my recurring costs with SE CW4SE.Then I would have annual costs of one third what I will have if I continue the SE CW4SE path I am on. It is my money and it does have to be earned if you want some of it. I have a lot of thoughts wandering around in my mind right now that I never thought I would have three months ago. If Autodesk promises to maintain desktop permanent seats indefinitely and I feel I can trust them to do so I may just buy into it. Truthfully CAM is the most important part of my business in some ways because I may only design something once but make thousands of them afterwards. It is just as important for my CAM to work right as my CAD because I am a manufacturer and the recurring costs are a part of my profit picture. I have to admit that when my must pay maintenance jumped over 4G recently it was a wake up call that began to ask the question do you really want to be here.

4 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

HEY Three Stooges of Siemens Failed marketing and Publicity, Check This Out!!

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 6 comments

An article today I am reading today http://den-media.com/portal/wts/cgmcgbbe8sibbsyAqcksD86ckBkrAwa has jelled some thoughts in my mind. While I despise the idea that Carl Bass and Autodesk want to establish a feudal overlord cloud kingdom I am really coming to admire their plan for doing so. If they reconsider this cloud only paradigm they will probably be the powerhouse that will take the SolidWorks throne in the future and not Solid Edge. I hate to say this but this referenced article has me thinking hard here about the possibility for the first time that Solid Edge might not be the heir.

It has been a struggle for SE for years under UGS and now Siemens with gosh awful marketing and publicity. Thanks Larry, Curly and Moe and I hope you know the grace period you have been given for three years with Dassault screw-ups now has to be shared with Autodesk. Because of your corporate paralysis and your inability to do anything worthwhile in a major way for YEARS I truly believe that you have allowed a hungry, organized and totally capable rival to in a very short time threaten to take the place that should have been yours. And Carl Bass won’t have much trouble whipping you sorry individuals most thoroughly when it comes to appealing to new customers in spite of the cloud he proposes. I sit here today just fuming and it is hard to describe the total and complete contempt I feel for a company that is so ossified and preserves such incompetents and failed policies with such vigor. I really wish someone would buy Solid edge out from Siemens hands at this point in time if this is all the opportunity you three stooges ever care to give them. This brilliant software deserves much more than you can deliver.

Here is why I grow increasingly mad with this situation and it is not just because of a couple of ads. It is because I see a well conceived plan being made and executed and absolutely no coherent plan from Siemens to counteract it. Frightful thoughts keep creeping in to my mind that the three stooges may not even discern this is happening or worse even care.

First off MCAD is just design stuff and if you do not have a method to build these designs by you are incomplete. This has been one of the problems with SE forever and the closest they have ever come to software that can’t go away from them is NX Cam Express. OK look I am thrilled that CAMWorks is now integrated with SE and I have bought into it. But deep down inside with all the acquisitions going on this last year and a half I wonder when Autodesk will buy this too and then I will be in the same boat as HSMWorks and Delcam users. I believe that Autodesk has totally bought into this end to end idea and further I think Carl Bass himself designs and builds and he gets the connection. And unlike Siemens Stooges he cares and he has a plan.

This is what I see. If I were Carl and just twiddling my thumbs one day idly dreaming of beating my rivals, I bet he does that you know, I might decide to take SolidWorks place in the market. It is pretty clear that Solid Edge is a good product but Siemens has no clue on aggressively marketing what they have. And you know when you go toe to toe with Siemens, a company that has a hard time getting past meetings to plan on meetings and retains numerous people who specialize in ways to say no, action will win the day. So what to do,,,, Hmmmmmm,,, I know, lets create a cohesive complete rival ecosystem and clean everyone’s clock.

First we will buy HSMWorks. It is a powerful program that has good tool paths, is really quick and easy to learn and allows you to generate toolpaths the way most shops I know prefer to do so with a great logical intuitive GUI. And it is attached to our arch rival. Now that you have bought this no one can take it from you and you can plan however you want. You have a job shop with gobs of different parts each day and don’t want to fool around with complicated Tech Data Bases this is it. In the mean time you continue the 2.5 axis FREE machining package that now is entering into its second+ year and also port it over to inventor where you do the same. I know this level of functionality in Surfcam for instance is about $4,500.00. They aren’t giving away cheap crummy junk here.And you treat the old SW users right and with respect and defuse all the bad vibes the takeover caused. My friends shop was given two years free maintenance for HSMWorks to defray the cost of him having to get a full seat of SW AND they gave him a really serious discount on a second seat just for the cost of maintenance basically. You are now creating loyalty from HSM users and giving them exposure to your 3D offerings via things like Fusion 360. No this is not a capable midrange MCAD program but it gets you in their minds eyes and you are going to improve it.

Now lets tackle the thorny problem of 3D design. I know Inventor is not what will draw many to my company so what do I do now? OK, Delcam has a pretty good modeller out there and a really stellar suite of manufacturing products. As a matter of fact when it comes down to strictly making things I think Delcam has everyone beat for variety of strategies from machine probing to 5axis dental implants to you name it. If it has to do with measuring, verifying or various machining strategies overall they can’t be beat. Single things out there like Volumill are better than Delcams HSM stuff but overall no one beats them. I think I will buy them to. You know what says Carl, I really like this ownership thing and the control it brings me. Hmmm, Should I buy Geometric to? Hey Mabel, set a meeting up for me with Mr Big at Geometric for next month. I need to get the ball rolling there to.

So now Carl has all the pieces needed to assemble a cohesive and complete manufacturing from design cradle to build out grave ecosystem that will appeal to huge numbers of people over time above and beyond the ones he has purchased. And they are treating those who have been bought out right from users to VAR’s as far as I can see so in this case so far the buyout company looks to be on track not to run old customers off. And he solves the stigma of only having Inventor to offer to MCAD prospects. I see all these buyouts and for the first time I am beginning to reconsider the idea that they mean to force everyone to the cloud. I think there might be a line of demarcation here and they will end up offering most to autonomous and cloud customers because way to much proprietary manufacturing information goes along with the Delcam purchases and many of them will not go to the cloud. I don’t think Carl intends to just throw them out. But if he does then the Autodesk plan of conquest will be short-lived and they wont do it and SE wins then in spite of gross Siemens marketing and PR ineptitude..

And talk about planing for the future! I admire the way they have slipped their product into the Superbowl in such a clever fashion where a huge audience will in many cases for perhaps the first time see what design and analysis software is. Kids in college, parents writing checks for kids in college, tech schools wanting to teach programs people have been inspired to learn. Junior on the sofa in grade school watching this with his Dad will in many cases remember this years later. You know darned well things like this have affected every one of us. And what name will they remember? Why Autodesk of course. I think they are slick to buy time ahead of time in anticipation of the SWW2014 debacle for things like Josh Mings post. I know I have not seen most of what Autodesk is doing so I have no idea how pervasive what they are doing is. I am going to bet that when they get the 3D ball rolling in a big way they are not going to give out such chintzy inducements to get new customers away from SW and SE as has been the norm at SW and SE for some time now. I still can’t figure out how I could buy Solid Edge Classic for basically $3,000.00 five years ago and no one has been able to since that promotion ran out. It’s like there is a life time limit of once for SE to be really hungry for SW users. Is SE going to profit from this since I will probably be with them for 15 or 20 years unless they get stupid? Autodesk will understand this and eat everyone’s lunch at SE and SW. I have to think this football thing is a sign of things to come. Carl has a plan and he is visionary unlike Bernard Charles who is delusionary and Siemens Stooges pervasive incompetence. He is not afraid to step out and do it. Siemens has studies and navel gazing and circular logic sessions. Talk about making more money you Siemens big wheels, get rid of this albatross of unproductive incessant meetings and those that create them so they don’t have to actually produce something or heaven forbid make a decision and I bet your bottom line would be noticeably better.

The big tech school on the north side of Nashville teaches SW, Autocad and Featurecam and they have a lot of students. I bet they may be teaching Powershape and or Inventor soon to but nope, not SE. Losers.

The other serious thing here for SE and SW in particular with their track record of vaporware is the speed with which Autodesk seems to be creating viable test beds that actually work and they don’t hide behind a shroud of secrecy when they do it. They have had a history I’ve been told of buying things and taking bits out to use in poor integrations and letting old programs die. I am not so sure this is going to happen this time.

Carl Bass, I despise this cloud thing you espouse and I think you lie about the clouds capabilities but I truly admire someone with a coherent plan who steps up to the bat. I watch with admiration as you step by step make plans to conquer your rivals in ways they seem to be in able to respond to.

For the first time I am seriously considering the idea that the stupid side of Siemens is going to be what defeats Siemens and this infuriates me.

6 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dassault Confirms Concentrated Geometric Masochism Kernal Future for Loyal Customers

Posted on January 30, 2014 | 9 comments

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.

9 Comments

Posted in machinedaudiohornlens.com

Tagged , , , , , ,