Tag Archives: NX

Dassault and now Autodesk “Experience” Software on the Cloud

Posted on November 20, 2012 | 9 comments

http://www.3dcadtips.com/understanding-dassault-systemes-3dexperience/ Author Evan Yares. If you don’t read Evans posts you might consider taking a look and I certainly recommend them. Quoted below from his post.

“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.”

Pardon me if I am a little dense here but what the heck did CHARLES just say?  Haight Ashbury had its heyday in the 60’s and someone needs to tell CHARLES this was not a stellar business model.

Autodesk has now entered the cloud holistic software “EXPERIENCE” thing along with DASSAULT. These companies share the same problems they can’t control and both offer up vague promises never spelled out in binding written contracts. Neither of these companies can guarantee a single thing except billing statements and additional layers of newfound problems for buyers over infrastructure they neither own or control. Oh, and you can bet this will end up costing you more in many ways over time as an additional special incentive to go there. Drink the Koolaid before you go and bring your checkbook.

http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2012/11/what-is-the-deal-with-autodesk-and-cloudmobilesocial.html

Scott Sheppard writes replete with all the required corporate speak buzzwords and phraseology. At least here we are spared the all caps thing DASSAULT loves so much.

  “Autodesk approaches strategy in a two-part process: Strategic Intent (“where we want to go”) and Strategic Realization (“how we will execute against the intent”). We are focused on The Autodesk Experience — How do all of our products and services work together in the cloud? As part of this, we spent A Year of Learning Dangerously where we learned a great deal about broad disruptive changes impacting the industries we serve:

( I can provide a translation here for those of you wondering what he said. They had planning sessions on how to implement a paradigm that would take away autonomous permanent seats of software and replace it with data captivity and pay to play and make you think you were really getting something really cool and beneficial. Intent means you backwards looking Neanderthal type customers who want to control costs and security.)

1.Generations – Although a generation gap used to reflect a 20-year biological span, in terms of technology, it only takes a 7-year age difference to see a marked delta in how one generation uses technology versus another.”

  (OK so what does this mean in practical terms? We are supposed to cater to a group that thinks it has a right to spend half the day online with “social” media and then pay them to do so rather than doing what they were hired to do. You think I may be exaggerating here but talk to Human Resources and see if they don’t figure that to hire many young people you are expected by them to allow access to frivolous time wasters on-line.)

“2.A Shift To The East – Emerging markets in Asia and Africa are where manufacturing, construction, and media activities are moving.”

(OK, I don’t live there and I don’t plan to move there. You want me as a customer sell me what I want not what someone else half  the way around the world hypothetically wants. This is just as dumb as Al Gore saying the Europeans spend $8.00 per gallon of gas so why shouldn’t we do the same.)

“3.The Age of Access – Society is moving from only requiring access to products instead of owning them.”

  (The people I know want to own not rent. They want to be free of the dictatorial controls and uncontrollable costs renting brings. More corporate speak PR BS with no empirical evidence offered to justify it. Now maybe we are heading into such perilous economic times that renting is all some people will be able to afford but I bet almost everyone in that boat would rather be an owner.)

“7. Infinite Computing – The economics of computing are such that latency in the design process can be dramatically reduced by using banks of computers in the cloud.”

  (Sigh, where do I even begin with this? Let’s try this.  OK Scott let me help you guys out here. This uses the internet right? Do you guys own and control the internet from the server farm to my phone line access point? Please explain to me this infinite stuff and how it will be infinite over what you don’t own or control? The economics of computing in the real world dictates a workstation or server combining CPU and GPU capabilities operating autonomously off of the problem infested internet. Staggering capabilities are now available for under $6000.00 with no dependencies on any external internet choke points or security or data ownership problems. And as an added bonus I get to use the versions I want to use and not what someone like Autodesk decides I get to use.)

At the end of the day what I buy is a tool and not an EXPERIENCE. At the end of each year assessing what the cost and money earned with each owned major tool has been. I bought a Haas VF4 to cut parts quickly and efficiently and not to provide an audio-visual mechanical EXPERIENCE in my shop. I buy software to yield results not to cater to some nebulous corporate concept of EXPERIENCE. Whatever that happens to be on any given day dependent upon the latest iteration of trial balloon wisdom floating up from the corporate mountain top oracles.

I have a novel approach you cloud guys might want to consider. You  want to sell something try doing so on provable merits. Along with written guarantees and clear definitions of who owns what, how it will work reliably and securely and better than what I can do for myself and not the lies and deceptions currently offered.

 

 

 

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You DO NOT Have Property Rights Over Your Data on the Cloud

Posted on November 5, 2012 | 2 comments

This is not going to be a long post today because it does not need to be.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/11/02/1737219/us-government-you-dont-own-your-cloud-data-so-we-can-access-it-at-any-time

In part I quote below from this article.

“But in addition, the government’s approach should terrify any user of cloud computer services—not to mention the providers.  The government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service.  Specifically, the government argues that both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin (a standard cloud computing contract) and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia (also a standard agreement), “likely limit any property interest he may have” in his data.  (Page 4). If the government is right, no provider can both protect itself against sudden losses (like those due to a hurricane) and also promise its customers that their property rights will be maintained when they use the service. Nor can they promise that their property might not suddenly disappear, with no reasonable way to get it back if the government comes in with a warrant. Apparently your property rights “become severely limited” if you allow someone else to host your data under standard cloud computing arrangements. This argument isn’t limited in any way to Megaupload — it would apply if the third party host was Amazon’s S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud.  ”

Can I say with confidence now and beyond any shred of doubt any company like Dassault and Autodesk who are going to soon demand that you place your  data online in the cloud are bald-faced liars when they say it will be done securely and never to worry. There is not one single thing they can say to this except to put in their EULAs a bunch of legal jargon to prevent themselves from liability when problems arise. Please note I said when not if.

Oh, and for the records sake I once again ask any qualified rep from Dassault or Autodesk to prove me wrong here. Indeed anyone from anywhere please and I will be quick to post what you say and give you an apology and stop writing about all this. Your cloud is just hostage taking greed to get into your customers pockets with a business model they will have a hard time escaping from and you can’t prove the viability or security of it and I await your replies.  I wonder how these companies who portray the cloud as your workplace savior for your secure storage of the lifeblood of your companies cad data can even stand there with straight faces and tell you everything is all right. These paragons of corporate integrity who back up nothing they say with guarantees.

Companies come and go and have their shares of legal problems. You as a legitimate customer of a cloud service are now an unwilling participant in whatever may come down the pike and this new-found jeopardy is particularly pernicious. Let me put this in real world terms. From data theft, data seizure, down time, poor internet data bandwidths and on and on there is now the ability of the, oh lets the Chinese government, to legally seize a cloud farm and all that is in it. Hey, if the US can do it don’t kid yourself by thinking other countries won’t do it too.

I would go further and say that anything that is not on your own private network is vulnerable and sad to say that also includes now all PLM and related products that have to work over public ISP’s and utilize a server farm not owned directly by your software company. I recognise the value of PLM and I know it has to use the cloud in many cases to work. But I also think anyone who goes there should be told of the risks by the software company that wants them to go there. Furthermore companies who wish to use the cloud need to be aware and make plans accordingly and be willing to lose all intellectual property they have stored there. It is after all not yours anymore is it.

These cloud vendors do have a consistent pattern and it is one of evasion and lack of real world examples of success. I am of the opinion that only a fool would do this to his company and over time will reap the rewards of being one.

Any of you cloud vendors care to reflect upon the good deal you are offering users? Dassault, Autodesk perhaps you might have a word for your customers?

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Corporate Stability, Philosophy and YOUR CAD Dollars

Posted on October 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

There are some huge fundamental changes that are happening in the CAD world right now and it would behoove anyone who uses a CAD program to make a living to start paying attention. Look, the I don’t care everything is alright your just crazy for thinking SolidWorks (and perhaps others too for differing reasons) is going away or changing into something I can’t use mind-set does not allow the possessor of that mindset to evade the inevitable forthcoming reality.

Before I go any further please look at the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Systemes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens

What we have here is a snapshot of value and how it is derived. It is also an indicator of why companies are making decisions that directly affect you.

Dassault has made the decision based I believe on things like the value of Google and Facebook to change the fundamental core philosophy of what they do to social engineering and away from basic pure engineering. It is the only thing I can see that explains all the seemingly irrelevant acquisitions and the odd concentration of R&D dollars into social engineering programs and Minimoys and gamification and crowd sourcing and on and on.

Why? It is a lot harder to develop something that has to deliver concise exact results like engineering programs do and judging by relative values nowhere near as valuable. Dassault has taken since 1981 to get this far and Facebook and Google have sailed way past them in far less time. I think Dassault looks at those dollars and contemplates jettisoning their traditional designer  for more lucrative less demanding markets.

There is also a robber Barron element there in their thinking where they want you to have to pay to play with their stuff.

The push is really on right now for usurpation of property rights and usage rights. Ranging from not being able to resell something you own like books (legislation currently being proposed in Congress) to the attempts by companies to stop online piracy they all center on one thing. More cash for deep pockets from your pockets. Their solution in the area of companies like Dassault is to prevent permanent seats of anything and to force users to be subscribers and to end permanent seats. They want the ability to say to you that every day you use their software you have to pay a fee. As a matter of fact they want you to pay for every day whether you use it or not. This is why Dassault will talk about how things will remain like they are with permanent seats but never give a written guarantee for this. Facts do speak louder than mealy-mouthed corporatespeak.

Which brings us to dear little Autodesk. Autodesk at this time appears to want to remain primarily a CAD company. The major problem with them is that per their announced earlier this year corporate policy they will be adopting the robber Barron cloud only security breaching paradigm.  Your reward for years of loyal usage will be pay to play. Yeah, the fight against piracy is a wonderful excuse for punishing your loyal cash paying customers. I figure that the hackers will find a way around anything these CAD companies do so what is the true motive here? I believe that it amounts to a desire to end the ability to use software without a user fee—-forever. No more of this junk like using a permanent seat for multiple years without having to cough up funds to Autodesk.

Don’t believe me? Get your guarantees against this in writing from Autodesk. I am sure they will provide you with one. Along with the one that says your intellectual property will remain yours and you won’t have to be current on your monthly subscription to use it to make a living. This is no different from the mob guy who walks into a business and “sells” you fire insurance. That Autodesk intends to do this to its loyal customers says a lot about how they regard their partnership with their customers. They desire you as chattel.

Now regard Siemens and here we have a completely different concept. UGS/SolidEdge was bought because Siemens is one of the major manufacturing corporations on the world. They wanted to own software that they could control and implement in their corporation to improve their own manufacturing processes and efficiencies. They intend to use this software to make things. Just like you. You want to own and use it and so does Siemens. They have no intention of being trendy with social media junk. It is not what they do or will ever do. There is not even a hint that they are spending R&D$$$$ in this area like Dassault is. I have spent some time looking in cracks and crevices and under rocks for any hint that Siemens is going to force customers onto the cloud with their design software and I can’t find any. They darned sure aren’t looking to foist Minimoy’s or gamification on us thereby catering to this stupid social media iPhone XGen (or whatever this weeks trendy label is for slackers) generation bunch that expects to be allowed to spend up to half their paid days doing other things besides what they are being paid to do. It is far better for your bottom line that your employees never have to go online to use your design software both in elimination of wasted time and in preventing security breaches. There is also no hint of the robber Barron stuff here.

I have not asked for a written guarantee from Siemens as I expect that it would be met with the same stony silence as this request would get from Dassault and Autodesk. I do have a reason though for making these statements. Dasssault and Autodesk are the ones who are making huge changes in your future against your desires and wishes. They are the ones who are having to make reassuring promises of future intent to users who are rightly quite worried. Siemens is not in this boat as they are not out there selling their customers down the river and no one needs reassuring on this side of the fence.

It was an entirely unintended consequence of my purchase of Solid Edge that I would find myself in the only major CAD program concerned with manufacturing and users needs. Five years ago so much of this cloud stuff and this pay to play stuff was not regarded as serious. The only  pay to play CAD effort I remember from this time frame was SpaceClaim and their subscription model failed miserably and was precisely why they never got a look from me. If I can’t own it I don’t want it. I don’t want an apartment I want my own house.

Corporate philosophy has today become just as great a benefit to me as Synchronous Tech is. I believe in these guys and I believe they have long-term plans that dovetail quite nicely with my desires for best in class design software that will be stable and useable and that I would desire to use for the rest of my working career which I figure to be at least ten years and more if I am able.

You guys in the Dassault and Autodesk worlds better start waking up to reality and begin the process of deciding just what you want to use and the conditions under which you want to use it. A decision to make no decision is of course a decision just as binding as the one made to take action. The one who makes choices though is far better off than the one who has them made for him.

I have gone through this with VX/ZW3D so I understand legacy files blah blah blah. I understand hating the idea you have to learn a new program. Believe me I do as I never even owned a computer until 2001 and never had a CAD program until 2005. I am now 59 so don’t talk to me about lack of desire to have your little world changed I DO understand those thoughts. I am currently looking for CAM which is another thing I never wanted to do. But what do my personal wishes have to do with corporate CAD decisions? Absolutely nothing as they don’t call me to sit in on the planing meetings. I am left to look out for myself.

Today I recommend without any serious reservations Siemens NX or SE. These are the only major players that have no current or future plans to upset your apple cart. If stability and the ability to plan for the future is as important to you as it is to me regard the philosophy of the company you are doing business with as seriously as you investigate their programs as they have both become critical things to jointly consider.

As an aside here. I complain a lot about lack of CAM in SE and it does gripe my rear end in a major way. I believe these kinds of problems are being solved though so my last remaining major complaint against these guys will soon be history.

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Solid Edge Promotions

Posted on October 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Sorry to disappoint you if you came here to get the latest updates for wonderful and terrific Solid Edge promotions. There have not been any since the release of Synchronous Tech 1 (ST1) when I came on board. What drew me at the time were the capabilities of Synchronous tech in its infancy. I could see the potential in it. What really clinched the deal though was the offer of $3,000.00 for a seat of SE Classic and the first years maintenance. How could I refuse? Let me tell any corporate guy who may be reading this if you don’t think this means a lot to a small customer who is being asked to leave behind lots of accumulated work and something already paid for you are sadly mistaken. I cant explain the  all the psychological reasons behind why users hang on to something they don’t like anymore. All I can say is that in most cases they need incentive to change above and beyond just the capabilities of the software you sell and your wonderful PR campaign. Solid incentives are important and extremely influential and it is what will take users who hate what they use off the fence and into your back yard.

But my main reason for posting today is the idea of concepts in promoting your product and what you think will get potential customers attention.

SO, how do you get traction on promotions above and beyond offering the above mentioned idea? I see various companies offering incentives to participate in a contest. SE had the $6,000.00 prize for this thing that only lasted two weeks.

http://blog.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/blog/2012/08/01/edison2-local-motors-and-solid-edge-team-up-and-launch-6000-design-competition/.

ZW3D offered $300.00 for design winner recently. Others offer an iPad or phone. In general what all these things have in common is that almost all of them are promoted by big companies with varying degrees of hoopla and really trivial prizes.

I am in the process of acquiring a new company as a customer. They are a health food encapsulating outfit looking for a local machine shop to produce both replacement parts on a regular basis and to bail them out in emergencies. I don’t just tell them what I can do nor do I just say see my customer list and maybe I will even find you a referral who will talk to you. I get in there and offer my time for free in designing parts and producing samples and making sure what I produce is up to specs and works well. I am charging nowhere near the value of the current time I have into this. I am betting that when, not if, these guys become good customers I will more than make up for what I put out upfront in “promotions”.

As an aside here. As a percentage of my gross it is a far more serious promotion of my company as a percentage in actual cost than anything I have ever seen a major CAD or CAM company offer. I am beating the pants off of the silliness that most CADCAM companies believe in that a thirty-day trial is all they need to offer as incentive. I am also GOING to have these guys as customers because I am taking positive and meaningful actions that really matter to them to guarantee this.

Promotions I think in order to be successful and to really get attention have to be out of the ordinary and offer potential users a reason to be there. Maybe it should be broken down into two categories with existing and potential users as separate categories if this promotion is open to both.

I like the current design concept contest over at Matt Lombard’s blog

http://ontheedge.dezignstuff.com/on-the-edge-project-mini-flexcavator/643

but it lacks that little zinger that would push it seriously into the public eye. All it is right now is basically bragging rights incentive for a few disgruntled SW users and a few enthusiastic SE users. This is to me a perfect vehicle for enticing potential users if it would offer some serious incentive. At the least would be free seats of SE for certain category winners. The top winner would have a real cash incentive as an additional bit of inspiration to all who participate. It has to be a closed time frame but long enough to allow people to spend some serious time with the program to learn it. Using the seat you have provided to registered contestants for the length of this contest. Remember, considering what is currently being offered you are expecting here that these guys are going to spend their own time out of their hopefully busy schedules learning this software just for curiosity’s sake. Primarily SW users I presume since this is I would think your primary potential market.

Once you have serious incentive there then you have to promote it and get it aggressively into the CAD users world. Is it too much to ask when you hope to profit by millions in capturing new customers that you show these potential new customers you are serious about how good your software is? It does not go un-noticed by cad users who are expected to cough up the dough and buy your products that typically the, ahem, grand prize is less than a single seat price of the software you want to sell them. It is a niggardly attitude and it is noted as such by the users you want to reach.

I think  the concept behind the “Flexcavator” is a great idea that needs to have some time and incentive devoted to it by Siemens and SE and I mean beyond the participation of people who work with SE.

Just how do you get curious but busy people to look your way at what you sell? You compel them. Just how do you get reluctant buyers to buy what you sell? You entice them.

Just for the records sake I am speaking here of my own experience and what compelled me. I am also reflecting on what I have been told by other users as to what motivated them besides things like largest market share and most jobs on jobs boards. Never think these two things are not important. Even in the disintegrating world of SolidWorks this is still the most compelling sales tool out there and it drives their numbers more than anything else. No one else can compete in these two areas so you have to compete against them with a different incentive.

Local Motors and this two-week long contest is to me something that never even gets to the starting gate much less out of it. It is academically oriented and not targeting the professional user market at all. It is to short time wise and not worthy of mention otherwise in most places and that is exactly what it got. I find sadly that it is typical of what major CAD and CAM companies seem to think is sufficient inducement worthy of potential customers spending many thousands of their hours of irreplaceable time to take a peek.

I fully expect in the first quarter of 2013 that Solid Edge will have for the first time an integrated CAM partner. IF Autodesk does not buy them out too and who knows what they will do in light of the HSMWorks bomb. In any case assuming this will not happen this is a milestone in the SE path to the future. It is my hope they will get behind this and seriously compel potential users in both word and deed. To do this in ways that mean something to those they want to reach and not just to some marketing department sitting in a closed room debating things and budgets that appeal to themselves and not potential users. That closed room atmosphere that seems to be so conducive to the attendees talking to each other but somehow never getting good results.

It’s a strange world we live in when those you mean to appeal to are never asked what is appealing to them.

 

 

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Dassault + Autodesk + Cloud = You Are Screwed

Posted on October 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

Reading with interest the comments by Autodesk this past week referencing the acquisition of HSMWorks as part of their strategy to move users to the cloud. It is appropriate to discuss exactly what this wonder of software utility will have to use to work. Yes, it is true, this thing has to use the internet.

In congress this past week has been the discussion of Huawei telecom equipment from China. Your friendly provider of internet shopping carts for those who want to know all about what you don’t want them to know about. This comes in the same year that brings us the reports of Dell server boards with back doors built-in and military components with the same from China among many other reports. Look, there is a lot of proof of these things out there and if the idea that your internet stuff is secure is the world you live in you better start researching for yourself and see.

Anyway so the Chinese governments partner Hwawei makes stuff for the world’s internet and does whatever they have to in order to get it in place. I had to laugh while reading about this stuff today as about a half a year ago I jokingly said if I were the Chinese I would provide this internet stuff for free. Now I find out they are providing the equipment for free in some cases just to get their foot in the door.  China is a very corrupt nation with contempt for the idea of your intellectual property rights and the ties of the military have tentacles all through Chinese finance and industry. This is not a group of people who can be trusted in any way.

http://www.zdnet.com/hack-in-the-box-researcher-reveals-ease-of-huawei-router-access-7000005600/

SO, now that they have a shopping cart in place in your facility just what do you do about it? Well you yank it out and get a different piece of equipment first off. Better yet your internal network for important things has no acess to the internet.  But what about the web which neither you or Dassault or Autodesk can or ever will control? Web is safe right? I mean these people from Autodesk and Dassault are capable management and would not tell you a lie just to get into your pockets right?

Now look I am not a millionaire nor a billionaire and I am not the head of a major or even medium size company. I can read however and do a smidgen of research. What I find is indisputable proof of jeopardy for those who adopt any cloud based service without complete indemnity from the cloud company. Like the ones Finance has had to offer. Ironclad and in writing. I have to believe that I am not uniquely suited to find this information out and therefore the only conclusion a rational person can reach is that the cloud as these guys promise it is a fraudulent promise.

Last year there was an  event that most of you are not aware of. This little jewel made sweat pop out on the foreheads of every major military contractor and security agency around the world.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/15/internet-traffic-was-routed-via-chinese-servers/?page=all

So just remember, any company that tries to sell you or force you into the cloud and is not willing to completely cover your risk there does so with malice aforethought. They are interested in only locking you into a solution that will in short order make you a data hostage subject to extortion where pay to play with your own intellectual property will be the new norm. Comments to the contrary about providing stand alone desktop solutions never come with written guarantees of longevity nor is there an available contractural agreement to provide such a thing for any time frame. Not one provides proof of concept nor a real world ROI study to demonstrate how this will be of true benefit to customers that I have seen. It is purely about your money in their pockets and more of that over time and in ways you can’t stop except by leaving.

It is a profoundly cavalier attitude towards your future these cloud companies like Dassault and Autodesk bring to the table. Let me rephrase that. It is a contemptible one where they can’t prove security nor cost justifications for their business model. They do however have endless supplies of Koolaid at the negotiating table though so at least you won’t be thirsty while discussing things with them.

On second thought I can reference a recent real world study although an inadvertant one. COFES 2012 internet meltdown. Providing proof of concept we have here http://www.deelip.com/?p=7485#comments

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The pitfall of CAM as a Partner

Posted on October 8, 2012 | 9 comments

With the purchase of HSMWorks I have to wonder if this will begin some sort of acquisition effort by Solidworks and Solidedge. I don’t think as a percentage of customers that the loss of HSMWorks was all that big of a deal financially to Solidworks. But it does affect every CAM user out there that relies on an integrated CAM program that is not owned by their CAD company and it is a big deal to them.

Autodesk has proven that last week with this HSM event that absolutely no one had ever dreamed of. SW,SE, you have been given notice. Whatever you thought was safe and an asset you could point to is not unless you control it outright. VARS found that out to as basically they were told a day later if there was an Autodesk VAR in their geographical region they were toast. I figure that means every one of them. I also figure it means SW style HSMWorks user support has ended as how can those who have no comprehensive SW/HSM background, experience or training provide this?

I want to quote from a post over at the official Autodesk HSMWorks forum a comment by an Autodesk guy. Now as far as I can tell this is a VAR employee which kind of indicates the quality of support SW/HSM users will get. My main point in bringing this up is because Autodesk cares so little for the opinions of the HSMWorks users whose world they have just wrecked that they allow this stuff to be there.

Jerry, I can see that you are one of those guys that can’t be reached…Someone went and moved your cheeses. Boo Hoo! You’ve resorted to spreading you vitriol all over this post. You also assumed that I have no experience in industry besides being in sales. On most points, you have been wrong! I have owned a manufacturing company for twenty years, and began my CAD journey with pencil and paper. I’ve lived through the DOS years (Ugh!), and stepped up to Solidworks, and Inventor. I also understand that they are just tools. I have also spent many thousands on software programs, only to see them discontinued, or the companies sold (Try investing in a 90s MRP system, and you will know what I mean). The fact is that you have no idea what the future of the software is, yet you throw out your doom and gloom like a monkey slings its own feces. I deal with the other companies that Autodesk has purchased on a weekly basis, and know firsthand that they have not only grown in their capability, but that it was the best thing that could ever happen for the companies and the customers. Better product. Bigger budgets for programming, and new markets. You obviously have the time to sling mud at Autodesk, but it has gotten to the point where it is just offensive. It serves no purpose but to make you look foolish. Dassault and Autodesk are both big companies, vying for an increased market share. They both have a solid product. I chose Autodesk over Solidworks because they were more responsive to my needs, not less. It was not an easy decision, and in the beginning, I had regrets, as SW had a better product. But I liked the people who went out of their way to understand my business. I see now that I made the right choice. But that was my choice. I would be remiss is I just stood back and let you troll all over these people with your armchair idiocy. You sir are WAY out of line. If you just can’t stand “evil Autodesk”, then switch platforms. Just stop your bitching!! OK I’m done Smiley    End Quote.
   I think it is safe to say that Autodesk bought this for the technology and the SW HSMWorks users are well and truly screwed. There have been and will be I imagine no contractual offers given to these users to prove the words of future support will be true. In any case SW will not co-operate with Autodesk when it comes time to share the little code goodies Gold Partners have access to so HSM as it is know today is toast.
  Every CAM user who has an integrated CAM program and a half a lick of sense, if they are even aware this has happened yet, has to wonder if this could happen to them. It is amazing to me how many CAD and CAM users are oblivious to events in the software world so I have no idea how quickly word of this will spread. But for those who do follow things this is bad.  I have to admit that while I wait for Geometric to integrate with SE this is now worrying. What guarantee do I have that Autodesk or SW won’t do this to me with Geometric?
  I think at this time Siemens and SE offer the safest mid range MCAD program out there in regards to corporate direction and long-term stability in three important ways.  They own the geometry kernal they use, I don’t belierve they can be bought out ever again, and there is no current move I know of to force cloud junk down users throats. Key words when you don’t want to periodically have to make new software purchases because of dumb corporate decisions.  I think they are less than a year away from completing the last part of the MCAD puzzle adding complex surfacing capabilities much which will be better than current ones and will be in ST6.
 To me there is nothing close to Synchronous Tech out there and I had to laugh last week. Happens to be that a new customer uses a version of Inventor from a few years back and I imported a SAT assembly file from him. Met with him on Friday and clicked on a part in the assembly, a cutter blade from a “Jaws of Life” extrication tool, opened it up for edit and did so right away on his dumb imported geometry. Seeing is believing as they always say 😀
   For some reason however SE’s masters  have never until recently thought they needed more than just CAD. I trust the current leadership of SE to truly have the interests of users at heart and I base this upon what I have personally seen and heard behind the scenes and then watch happen in public and there has never been a divergence between promises made to me and subsequent actions. But this CAM thing with HSMWorks has me worried because without owning the CAM solution outright all the good intentions and promises could be out the window overnight. Guys, consider what has happened here and make sure you nail Geometric down. You don’t want  your first CAM integration to be swiped from you and neither do your future users. We want what the big guys want too. Stability and the ability to securely plan for the future in the tools we elect to use.
  I have waited for this for a long time and I don’t want the rug yanked out from under me like has happened with the HSM users. But in light of what Autodesk has done to SW it is clear that all integrated independent CAM programs represent real potential economic jeapordies and disruptions to the businesses that use them.

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Manufacturing IS the real end goal of Solidedge, Inventor, and Solidworks

Posted on October 2, 2012 | 6 comments

I am watching the beginnings of the shakeout over the acquisition of HSMworks by Autodesk. I see them coming up with a plan to implement a complete manufacturing solution for Inventor as they pursue the MCAD market and ancillary manufacturing that is the only reason for MCAD to exist.

Now I want you to read this again. Manufacturing IS the only reason for MCAD programs to exist. Why this has been such a blind spot for these three mid range MCAD programs for so long is a mystery to me. And furthermore when in doubt remember that CAD when it was born was implemented  as a method of feeding the fledgling CNC manufacturing base that had to have a way to talk geometry to machinery. It quickly spread into every area but ALL the areas were and are based upon producing a real thing.

Solidworks for some time has come the closest of the three to realizing the truth of this and has developed partners along the way to cover disciplines they had no interest, for whatever reason, in writing code for. The problem for Solidworks is that they never did more than grant partner certifications for companies that ultimately they did not control with anything more persuasive than a carrot held in front of the vendors.  So today we see the fruit that myopic vision harvests. HSMworks is no longer listed as a partner anywhere on the Solidworks site I can see. If I were Solidworks I would be wondering who is next to jump ship since none of the CAM programs out there are owned and therefore truly controlled by SW.

What does this say about customers who have to make things after the design who have been sold down the river here? And they have been. SW is already saying with the removal of HSMworks from their site that the war is on. I fully expect Autodesk to put the squeeze on SW users to switch to Inventor if they want to keep using HSMworks. OK, yeah the promises are out there of support for HSM’s user base with SW but does anyone really think Autodesk bought this company without an eye in part to  the peripheral benefit of scavenging SW customers? Users trusted SW when they bought HSM and figured they had a long-term integrated solution.

I like HSMworks and it was on my short list of programs to consider since SE really does not have integrated CAM yet and truthfully when they do next year I have no idea how good it really will be. It was the program I wanted integrated with SE to begin with and I can see now why HSM was not at all interested in SE. They were negotiating to be bought out lock stock and barrel. I have to wonder with Geometric who had a demo version of CAM software integrated with SE at SEU2012 what will happen to them as a Gold partner with SW when Geometric becomes a partner with SE?

Partner integration apparently is not sufficient to protect the interests of CAD companies and their users who wish to make parts and designs. When your time and effort and money can be yanked out from under your feet because your CAD of choice does not truly control your CAM of choice this can be a major problem. This is the lesson to be learned by SE and SW users here. Because SW saw no reason to have their own in-house CAM solution (but at least they did and do have integrated ones) all those who invested in HSMworks are I believe in short order going to be screwed. This Autodesk acquisition demonstrates the jeopardy we as users all face with any CAM program not owned by the CAD company whose products we use. I would not put it past Autodesk to buy out Geometric either and then where would SE be?

SE has never had any CAM partner except for NX Cam Express. Cam Express can be made to work with SE but so can a ton of other programs and the common problem with them all is that NONE are completely integrated with SE on the level that HSMworks is currently with SW. CAM Express is also complicated to learn and I know from personal experience watching shops close by me that HSM was easy to implement and produced pretty decent toolpaths. That is not going to happen with Cam Express and while there is good output it takes gobs of time to learn and program compared to HSM.

I think after all these years SE now understands that they have to be more and offer more than just CAD to their customers if they want to have a chance at knocking SW off of their throne. These ancillary programs are not optional if you want to be Mr. Big. Hope they back Geometric into a corner they can’t be bought back out of by Autodesk. There is sadly not much to say about SE in the integration area except that they know they have to change. But in the mean time multiple years pass swiftly and their competitors are not going to wait for SE to catch up or pass them up. Only concrete actions and not good intentions will take the throne of MCAD king away from SW.

I despise the model that Autodesk’s boss has espoused for the cloud and his comments that they are going to force people there. Look, I did not create the words that came out of his mouth nor did I put them there. You doubters just go and research for his comments earlier this year and see for yourselves. Jeff Ray on Steroids could not have beat this guy.

BUT,  I am in admiration of a company that has a plan to produce a manufacturing environment for Inventor, label this as midrange MCAD if you will, that seeks as its goal to control outright the pieces needed to do so and prevent the capability of any external source to interfere. Heck, they did not even have to go through the agony of arguing over endless integration details when they bought HSM. HSM clearly had spent the time to develop a good product and integration while complicated I am sure is a formality that rests on the solid CAM features in HSM and can be adapted to work with any CAD program. So Autodesk removed the headaches of develop from scratch and bought a proven product outright and now it is THEIRS.

I have to admit to being discouraged with having to shop for a CAM program this morning. There are lots of programs out there and they all have problems along with the good. But getting sold down the river is not one I had really considered as a part of planing for what do I buy to replace ZW3D. I had almost requested another trial of HSMworks as I was quite seriously considering how much longer can I wait for SE to get something going. Make no mistake here, my first choice would be something good integrated with SE but I have long-term CAM problems I am getting REALLY tired of having to deal with.  At some point in time the wait must end and I will buy something from someone but the choices in CAM are grossly complicated in comparison to the easy choice I had in CAD with SE.

I have a headache just thinking about all this and I think it is a good time to quit this post.

 

UPDATE

As an additional comment here. Going to the HSMworks forum today is pretty ugly. One poster in particular talking about $20,000 for HSM and somehow all these vacuous promises about the future, none of which I figure will be put in writing and contracts with existing customers, are at all assuring to him and others posting today. I think SW will also lose customers out of this because buyers get tired of smoke and mirrors from corporate bigwigs and negative comments are showing up there about Catia Lite too. People expect to be treated as valued customers for the amount of money they are spending with SW and HSM and they most definitely do not expect to be taken for granted or as CADCAM chattels with no choice but to fork over the dough. It is going to be interesting to watch this unfold and  I SURE am glad I did not go further with HSMworks.

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When Imprecise is Good Enough

Posted on October 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Rotary valves for depositors and food sevice use quite often have a few critical measurements that need to be adhered to. The size of the  rotary cutouts to match the housing cutouts and degree of angle of these around the centerline of the valve and housing cutout. The diameter and angle of the lever at the end.

Perhaps the most difficult area of creation is where two cutouts meet where they are of differing sizes and the corner rounds also differ. How do you make this geometry work? Now keep in mind this is a part to be cut on a rotary indexer on a VMC and ability of product to flow through this valve is far more important than a perfect blended set of surfaces where the two cutouts meet.

Here is the actual valve we are duplicating and while it is not real clear you can see enough to get the idea of where we want to go. In the following video the creation of the majority of the geometry and all the sketches have been done ahead of time and what I want to show is how direct editing can quickly arrive at a factory produced part condition.

I extrude remove from the top plane a cutout and apply corner rounds at this time keeping the depth of the cutout just into the part enough to create the rounds.

I can now go to the sketch on the angular plane and extrude remove viewing through the right end and in wireframe mode and go until by eye I can see it is close to the vertical surface on the back side of the first cutout. I now apply rounds.

Now I can select the round feature on the first cutout and the steering wheel shows up. I select the direction and drag down in “Z” until I can see that the round on the first cutout does not protrude below the second cutout. Close is fine here and I don’t need to fuss with precise placement of a gob of faces with differing radiuses and diameters.

This valve by the way goes into a unit where dispensing is into differing size pans and in the future if it needs to go into smaller pans I can window pick each set of cutouts in the centerline one at a time and move them over accordingly without have to create a whole new part with new sketches like I would have to in traditional modeling. Here I just make the edits and save it as a new part and in no time have a family of parts.

Here is the video. http://youtu.be/v1QIrWP84-k

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CAD Goblins Arrive Before Halloween

Posted on September 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

Reading Ralph Grabowski’s article http://novedge.com/i/114113 this morning about Autodesk and the cloud. Also reading about how Microsoft wants to force everyone to the cloud in some form or fashion to use Office 2013. http://www.zdnet.com/what-you-gain-and-lose-with-office-2013-subscriptions-7000004386/   .

I have to conclude that the idea of having a superior product to sell to willing buyers is not enough anymore for some companies. They look to be trending towards models that will force a constant revenue stream from customers that prefer to lock in their costs with a permanent seat of software. How many people do you know who are currently using software years old in their business and doing quite well with it. I have to admit that within two years I may well be in a position that the software I have at that time will last me for the rest of my career. I manufacture primarily from my own parts and as long as my CAD can communicate with my CAM and my CNC equipment I don’t HAVE to get anything else from these software companies. I was using an 11-93 Haas VF3 and in part Surfcam from 2006 and VX from 2009 and doing good enough for quite some time. Now with current stuff in my shop I can go for many years without changes or costs to keep current and do just fine. There are lots of companies that can make the same claims and indeed use software from the past to make a lot of money. The true beauty of permanent seats. This includes major corporations like Boeing too where they still have a large CAT4 presence so it is not just the small players.

Don’t you know how much companies like Dassault and Autodesk (yes and Microsoft evidently) hate the idea you can earn money legally with their stuff and not have to pay them each time you do so?

So back to Ralph’s article today and I have some comments about  what Autodesk proposes. It is all about follow the money and how to force customers into never-ending cash cows. It has nothing to do with those mythical cloud efficiencies so oft talked about but never clearly and concisely demonstrated. It is about the iPhone model where you start out with unlimited downloads and in quick order after a level of market penetration is achieved it goes away to be replaced with data caps and charges. In other words after a short period of time your costs will go up. In the case of files your autonomy will most likely go away and indeed perhaps even the right to use your own intellectual property if you can no longer open and edit files because you decide to quit the pay to play extortion racket.  Assuming you have read Ralph’s article and are up to speed let us proceed. You do need to read it for the first paragraph below to make sense..

What would be of interest is the complexity of the jobs allowed for the count or are all jobs created equal for the purpose of counting? My bet would be for a data cap somewhere and that brings me to this point. For around $10,000 you get a Dell mini supercomputer with astounding capabilities for FEA and rendering which seem to be the current sweet spots for multicore usage and which utilizes the Cuda tech for the GPU. The first out of the box is always clunkier and more expensive than what follows so I think it is reasonable for there to be greater capabilities at a lower cost within a year.

Now this will sit in your facility and have no internet related problems with throughput or security (yes that dirty little cloud cuss word) and for the price of one years usage be available for three years. I am basing that upon how long my replacement cycles seem to be. NO data caps from your ISP or from benign corporations like Autodesk who no doubt would never ding you extra for high data uses compared to the norm.

Ah yes, the cloud. That wonderful vehicle for corporations to get you and hold you and charge you. Except that other corporations are building the casket for this cloud model with super computing power cheap enough to sit on most desks in the CAD world and do I bet 95% of what will be needed in a timely fashion. I dare say that the majority of companies that have large complex analysis or renderings also have the wherewithal to buy the more expensive models to sit in their facilities and not go on the cloud and save money and time to.

Don’t you just love the deliberate ambiguities from cloud vendors about exact details and the TOTAL lack of any real ROI true life studies where they take a desktop or server and directly compare it to a cloud doodad with same files usage? And I mean all costs as these cloud guys never cover the ancillary costs associated with their services from tech and IT support to the cost of data over the ISP’s and any special gear needed to make this work on the customer’s end.

https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/last-body-part-needed-for-frankencad-identified/

I vacillate between Frankencad or Draculacad and have a hard time some days deciding which is most appropriate. Today I think I will opt for the bloodsucker.

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Prepackaged Malware for you and the Cloud

Posted on September 14, 2012 | 3 comments

I think the rush to embrace new for the sake of new because a group of people see a way to make money is a foolhardy thing. Yes I know the cloud is going to be used in some areas as I have said before but not for critical data like CAD as far as I am concerned. I am rethinking even for banking as there are more and more problems and at some point in time people will lose out. At the very least to be safe you have to hire something like Lifelock to protect your identity online. There is a price to pay for convenience in either stolen identities and or cash or at the least fees you have to pay each month for insurance like Lifelock.

Cool, tech savvy, cutting edge etc but mostly executives looking to reduce expenses any way possible and believing too much in hype. My favorite types are of course MBA’s and CPA’s without a primary or secondary degree in real world disciplines like Engineering or manufacturing. Basically the same group of clowns that brought you tech support from people who can’t speak English and have to read from the script while they try to solve your problem. Big money saved for them but what about their customers?

Today I read this. http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/09/13/microsoft-disrupts-the-emerging-nitol-botnet-being-spread-through-an-unsecure-supply-chain.aspx

This follows what was recently revealed with Military items which were similarly compromised because our MBA CPA types have moved huge chunks of our manufacturing to places like China. Word to the wise. If the company that wants you to put CAD on the Cloud will not make a clear and binding commitment to you as a customer to make you whole from any damages from forced usage of the cloud can you afford to be there? The world is getting more complex all the time and you can ill afford to purchase a service that the offering company will not stand behind when it is you and your company who will be left holding the bag.

If you are wondering about the cloud or considering useage of the cloud for CAD perhaps this would be a link of interest. http://www.zdnet.com/topic-security/ Read this for a few weeks and see for yourself about why none of these cloud for CAD vendors will stand behind what they want you to buy into.

As an aside here. Our government is a serious participant in the undermining of the US manufacturing base. They inflict ADA, EPA, OSHA,  affirmative action, and tons of other things that have gone so far past reasonable or justifiable, like Homeland Security has become, and into the realm of confiscation and socialism that it is hard to imagine this is America anymore. Then they allow companies to relocate to places like China where they can do what they want with ten times the pollution introduced into the atmosphere as what would have happened here and no alphabet agencies to ruin their days.  This November there will be perhaps the last time to vote against all this crap before we slide over the cliff if indeed it is not to late no matter who gets in. I am afraid we are in for a time of real trouble which will last for years no matter what and the best we can do is limit the damage by getting rid of the big government socialists in BOTH parties and begin reconstruction for the future.

I don’t normally put politics in here but sorry, it does affect me as a CAD user and as a company owner and I am getting tired of being walked over by big bad government and lazy people who want to stay at home and goof off while I have to work. Oh, and 100,000 dollar a year teachers that can’t teach in Obama’s back yard. His buds don’t you know.

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