Tag Archives: Solid Edge

Celebrate Fireworks Free July 4TH with Siemens SE Sales Supression Team

Posted on July 4, 2014 | 4 comments

I had a young lad from my church stop by Thursday. Like many he has graduated from a two-year community college with an Autodesk oriented study mainly Revit and architectural stuff. He also claimed to have six months of Inventor and some SW under his belt. He was curious to see SE though and I always make time to show anyone who is interested. He has been working sweating copper for an HVAC company doing installs for Walmarts. He decided that he did not like the boss though and quit. Now in this retarded Obama economy he is finding out that work is hard to come by and he stopped in to see what I am doing and to see SE.

So I run through some SE stuff for a while and listen to the oohs and aahs that you hear from Inventor types and SW types when you start in on the direct editing goodies. And I get to sit there and grin when he says how long it would take to do these things in SW or Inventor. But then we get into the serious life questions that revolve around this kid getting work and a future. And we get into the serious questions of a potential employer not being able to find the skills he needs in potential employees.

Of course the local college is teaching Autodesk and SW. They all do don’t they? Now this did not happen by accident it was by design with companies that have the ability to be forward-looking and to plan a market conquest based upon creating a need and a labor resource to fill the need. It is called smart business and planning and laying a foundation for the future. Of course this is something the overlords of SE have never done from Integraph until today where Siemens with huge financial power continues this legacy of ignoring the best mid range MCAD program out there. So I sit here with this young lad and ponder this situation that bugs the heck out of me. Namely the idea that Siemens SHOULD be seeking larger market share for the benefit of all involved with SE. But oblivious to things that would benefit their customers and drive more sales for them we see nothing. Again and still and apparently forever.

I look at yet another prospective employee that has no skills I can use unless I am willing to teach him SE. And I would have to be the one to do it because it is not taught by any school I know of closer than a 75 mile drive for him each way to UAH in Huntsville. And even then the instructors in Huntsville are stuck on lazy and do not teach anything about SE ST SIX YEARS AFTER IT’S RELEASE. I figure it is because they might have to be bothered to learn something new before they can teach it. Yes you heard this right, they only can be bothered to teach ordered. And yes Siemens does not police what is done with contributions here so these students never see the most powerful part of SE. It’s no wonder why the adoption rate of ST is so darned low. How are people supposed to know about and be inspired about ST if Siemens can’t be bothered to get behind SE and push this technology? Osmosis? Siemens is truly anal and retarded about this and it just furthers the idea in my mind that they bought SE by design for internal use only. Buy SE because it works for you not because Siemens will work for you. If you are looking to buy SE you better think hard about this. This kid CAN however go five miles each way to Columbia Community College and be taught SW and Autodesk stuff. By design and by plan there is work out there for people trained in virtually everything but SE.

I find myself in a sad position with people and SE nowadays because what I say can influence life changing decisions. I do not try to talk people into buying or using SE anymore because there is just no work out there for them anywhere close to where I live and after five years I have given up on Siemens trying to change this situation for the better. I do highly recommend SE under these two following narrow sets of circumstances. If you are like me and you do design build under your own roof and are basically a closed complete manufacturing entity you absolutely can not beat the power of SE. Bring in your customers files or do your own and then make the designs become reality better and faster than any other way. The second is that I recommend for those shops that have multiples of seats to get at least one seat of SE to deal with imported files and editing quickly internal files that would otherwise consume whole days to fix with SW or Inventor. But your primary customers will in all likely hood be using SW or Inventor and they will expect you to do the same. Refer back to the shrewd planning idea that the masters of SE have been bereft of since the very beginning.

My advice to this kid was I will teach you how to tig weld. There are ads in the paper for welders. I was not going to waste his time and mine teaching him SE when I know he can’t find any work with it. Once again I come face to face with eventually having to train someone how to use SE if I ever hire a designer. Or buying a seat of Inventor or SW and bypassing the training hassle. I hate to say it but my up front costs as an employer will be far cheaper with software I can get trained users for. This is the reality of the world that has been inflicted upon SE by idiots like Siemens German Management Experts. At least they do meetings well and the meetings to plan further meetings bit to.

I am getting really soured on the SE ecosystem. It seems like every time I turn around there are roadblocks placed before the usefulness of SE to me as a company if I step outside of the narrow range of design build under my own roof with just myself. SE does not get me a single bit of work because I have customers that use it. At this time not one does. SE does not provide me with a potential trained work force because students choose to learn SE based upon the idea they will be employed using it. Students just 75 miles north of the SE headquarters have never even heard of SE and when they and the colleges look at help wanted boards SE is absent there to. So just why should the colleges and students be interested in something that will gain them no work? Answer, they aren’t. So we have these inflicted wounds upon the body of SE that have no relationship to the outright capabilities of SE but have as its sole source owners of SE stabbing SE in the back. Time and time again and year after year they inflict these wounds upon SE.

For five years now I have fought to change this and I have just given up. These Siemens people are truly terminal adding to the long list of idiot owners where SE is concerned and who do not care. I have nothing but the highest regard for Karsten Newbury and I know he gets all the right things and wants the right things to happen. Siemens shoots him down all the time. I am only going to say this one time but I mean it. Karsten, if this is the way Siemens is going to do you why stay? Why not join the others who are leaving because Siemens is NOT going to ever get behind SE as far as I can see and you can do far better than this for yourself. Siemens is not going to give you the support required to make SE #1 and in truth they could care less about that whole idea anyway. So where does that leave you? I don’t know how much time you might spend thinking about this but I do and I wonder where it leaves me as a small business owner. Artificially crippled by idiots in Siemens Germany Muckymuck land is what I am thinking. The dead and utter silence since SEU 2014 does nothing but confirm this to me. Not a word about the Summits this year and just space-filling SEU2014 junk on the official blogs. The CADCAM blogosphere seemingly could care less and has nothing much to say about the best software no one has ever heard of. Every day I can read a lot of stuff from individuals and companies about Autodesk and SW but not SE. I don’t have to be there to know that Siemens has cut the purse strings to SE and that they do not care what happens to SE nor do they care what their existing customers think of all this. I can look around me and see what is being done and make this most accurate judgement based upon what I see in the real world. Quite frankly I doubt entirely the idea that SE is #2 in midrange MCAD and I figure it is another thing pulled out of some marketing guys rear end. No provable numbers and no corporate office that cares and you can’t be #2 under this kind of environment. But you can however put a smiley face on this mess because smiley faces are free and within the Siemens authorized budget for SE.

The only hope for SE as far as I can tell are right minded VAR’s and they are the only ones doing good work and trying to get the word out there. They appear to be the only ones who really care about the future of SE. I think of my VAR which is Ally PLM. They do a superb job of support for SE as a product and me as a customer. They care in all the important ways that the Siemens Overlords do not. Heaven help SE if these VAR’s ever get tired of all this.

So Happy Fireworks Free 4Th to you all at Siemens and may you enjoy contemplating the environment of externally imposed failure you have created for SE.

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Siemens Solid Edge German Controllers Doofus Update

Posted on June 19, 2014 | 5 comments

I used to look at Novedge Pulse every day and typically it was the first site I would visit.I was enamored of the CADCAM world and Novedge is the place to begin it each day. Not so much since Siemens killed my desire to be an advocate for Siemens Controlled Solid Edge. So I go there today and like many I know I use Firefox as my browser now. IE has become to flaky for my use and many sites do not work. The apparent market leader in over all size is Chrome according to Wikipedia. I suspect that Chrome has this place because of mobile and the fact that any freeware you download has those sneaky little opt out of Chrome thingies hidden in it. Twice I have had to obliterate Chrome from my wife’s PC because Chrome was installed without her catching it. Google Chrome is supposed to be the market leader by size but I wonder how much of their base has been acquired by trickery

I recommend by the way doing away with anything Google since they have a desire to destroy any privacy you wish to have and replace it with a society that is driven and controlled entirely by nice honest people like them. Get in your automated Google car with no brake pedals or steering wheels and ask yourself who really is in charge here and hope a hacker does not mess with you. Hackers for you civil liberty type come in two flavors both criminal types inside and outside of government and all want your stuff and or your freedoms. Firefox is not an egregious offender in this area. DuckDuckGo is a search engine I use more and more. They are privacy minded and as far as I can tell do no data mining and keep no records. Because of this their results are becoming more and more accurate while Google is becoming more and more a place that sends you where they think they can make money off of you. The quality of results on searches from Google for me have been going downhill for some time now. I often give up after two or three pages and wonder just how so much junk with no bearing on what I typed in shows up.

Anyway back to the topic at hand which is more clueless Siemens Corporate inspired stupidity. I have more trouble with websites under the inspired hands and minds of Siemens Marketing and PR than all the other CADCAM companies combined. It is because they do not care enough about what you think of them to worry about what you see. So today using Firefox I go to Novedge for the first time this week and see an article on Synchronous adoption at a company and how they did it. I like SE ST so I go there to have a look as why people are not immediately drawn to ST as either an old history based hand or a newbie and how this company made it work. So with my #3 market share in size browser I click on the link and get this.

ScreenHunter_01 Jun. 19 05.53

So whats up guys, no money in the budget to fix things before you put it out there or no desire to fix things? I get very tired of constantly turning around and finding yet another careless and slipshod bit of work that exemplifies the attitude that emanates from German Siemens Corporate types and results in what we see at ground level. Evidently far under the lofty plateau of inspired and correct management who see things as they should be we basement dwelling dirt worm user types should be grateful they do anything at all.

I have another picture today that sums up quite well the Siemens corporate attitude towards SE.

redhead with target

From yet another purported spycam somewhere in Siemens Germanyland where wise policies are made we have another form of decision-making dart boards. This one is only for big wheels though and uses live people and products to stick darts in. Can you ever imagine that life as the SE red-headed step child is ever fun or exciting?

Here, let me help you Siemens Doofuses out. I have a suggested line of SE items you can sell to help with your aggressive marketing policies and strategies implemented daily for SE. Perhaps Siemens Corporate could even set up an SE boosters booth at the next SEU.

bullseye cap

bullseye cup

bullseye tote bag

bullseye apron

I wonder just what others who could be customers for SE think when they watch such incompetent and bungling management from Germany. I happen to know it is by the way because I personally know the people who lead SE and they are totally competent and dedicated. They don’t talk to me anymore because I suppose I have become radioactive. I don’t think it is because I am wrong but rather it is that they have to duck under the German radar that pays them so I am off the plantation. It IS those above them that tie their hands and I just don’t get it. I know, lets have more MEETINGS whoopee!!!!!! Gertrude, where is the SE dart board guy, we have some important decisions to debate again.

I will say this. For those of you who wonder why the rants all the time. There is a ton of stuff that has happened to me personally and a lot of things I know but can’t talk about because employees would get into trouble. I fear I have already unmeaningly done so to some of them. So I avoid specifics now that could be identifiers. But do any of you wonder just why the biggest fan of SE has become a detractor? Now understand I and can’t stress this enough. The program I am in love with and I believe SE is the best mid range MCAD program bar none. It is the Siemens Corporate crap that has totally put me on the offense. It is the environment SE has to live in that infuriates me. No wonder the blogosphere for SE has basically been nonexistent for many years. Outside of Matt Lombard and Tushar Suradkars blogs not much goes on and they are both paid to do it. It is a serious and damning indictment of the way Siemens handles things that there are now NO active unpaid bloggers for SE except for me and I am not exactly talking positively about them anymore. They claim all this market share but have no worthwhile public face.

Buy Solid Edge because it works for you. Not because Siemens will work for you as a customer to see market growth you can benefit from. May I suggest you get the Coffee cup? It will look good and be far more useful than Siemens corporate and it can be your daily companion as you toil away designing.

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Is Siemens Retarded or Just Anti Solid Edge?

Posted on June 5, 2014 | 19 comments

I get emails that sometimes boggle the imagination. Today this one takes the cake. Here is a screen capture and you can figure out how to get there if you want.

Is Siemens retarded

So what is it Siemens? A guy who uses Siemens Controlled SE for a month becomes a mouthpiece for how superior NX is over SC SE? Really, you mean this??? What exactly am I supposed to think about this ad from one of your very biggest USA VAR’s?

I think you have no deliberate intention of boosting sales or market share for SE. If it happens fine but you do not seek to make it happen. I have now come to conclude this is a deliberate policy and I have to wonder just what are your plans for SE. I mean really just what am I supposed to think after official advertising such as this and Siemens Corporate smothering any effort to really get the word out on SE. If this is not deliberate policy (and today as I type this I think it is and you have made a choice against SC SE) it is at the very least another sign that the left hand does not know the right under your incapable direction.

Or is it the continuation of the fight between the mighty and lofty superior NX bunch over the threatening SC SE capabilities that might eat into NX sales? Do you people not realize that you are part of the same company? That NX and SE serve two different markets and do not coexist in the same work environments to any large degree? That when you try to sell more NX to SE markets what you are really doing is helping to sell more SolidWorks and Inventor seats into that market?

Unbelievable. Siemens new corporate branding for SE. “Buy NX, it is better!”

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Thanks a Lot Siemens Controllers!

Posted on June 3, 2014 | 2 comments

Working on a machining proposal for a local fabricator that has more than they can do and needs to outsource. I was referred to them and in the ensuing conversation the engineer ask what is it exactly that I do. I describe to him the various things and then get into the design aspect. I mention that I use (Siemens Controlled) Solid Edge. He laughs and he says that I am only the second person he has ever heard of using (Siemens Controlled) Solid Edge. So I ask what he is using and they are using Inventor.

So you swift on the ball corporate types in Germany from the Siemens Control tower I just want to say thanks. Thanks for once again demonstrating to me how stupid it is to mention I use SE and expect others to even know what it does much less how much better it is than stuff like Inventor. I started in on my spiel about how good SE is and how I could work on his parts faster than he could and just stopped. I thought to myself why are you defending once again those who have significant resources to do it themselves but refuse to do so? Why are you once again caught up in defending something you know is good when those who own it could care less? I stopped right away. I decided that that was the last time I was going to offer a defense for a company so completely negligent and navel gazing.

But it was worthy of comment here and just so you guys know I despise the complete and pure corporate Siemens Controller BS and crap management that put me in a situation like this once again. Well they used to put me on the spot. After what has happened lately the kindest thing I have to say to any potential customer is buy Siemens Controlled SE for it’s technical proficiency and forget about getting work with it based on market share. I intend to just tell people I talk to in the future the truth now and I refuse to defend Siemens. I have nothing to defend anymore because these people have beaten any desire to do so right out of me.

Pure stupidity.

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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.

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HEY, You Siemens Guys in Germany Listen Up

Posted on May 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

I can’t for the life of me figure out why you care so little for your public face and how the world sees you. So I get emails today and I think it is worthwhile to comment since the situation has me fired up anyway. Here I am less than a day later from the latest upFrontezine I commented on and this is what I get from you guys in my inbox.

Saratech

PLM web stuff

Please note that Saratech, a company that apparently does care about it’s public face although it is an infintesimal midget compared to the fiscal might of Siemens sends this email today.

Also note the email from the hapless incompetents you have hired to do a job that I get from Siemens. Complete with the only warning I will get today from any site or email. Let me ask you some questions. Why does this occur so often with you people. Do you hire and keep incompetents as a matter of policy or do you hire good people you then make look stupid by choking them for funds? I really wonder why all this is. And today I can’t login to the BBS or community once again and I just give up there. It is so surreal that nothing happens and broken new things all the time and old problems that never go away.

Let me ask you another question. Is the financial difference between 500,000 and 1,000,000 sold seats of no import to you? Kind of like what you could have had if you freed up your company to pursue these types of numbers. Dassault is begging you to take their customers and you just sit there twiddling your fingers.

And another thing. This Siemens publicity stuff you guys grudgingly produce. The one where all that is said is “Siemens” Siemens what, rockets, tiddly winks, time on a shrinks couch? What the heck are you selling? Let me tell you something. When I am looking for a product I need names and accurate descriptions of what you sell or I am not going to stop in to have a look. Read the following. This was a comment posted on my Lackluster SEU2014 launch post a few weeks back. It has been in my mind ever since. This is in England which I presume has some differing hands in charge. What is not differing however is the irrational and incompetent policies that are evidently being dictated from you wonderful people from Siemens corporate in Germany. Read it and weep for what you throw away. Unbelievable. I am disgusted with this whole situation and since I can’t figure out who is precisely to blame you all are. The thought though that the buck does eventually have stop at the very top does come to mind however. And the top is in Germany. Quit looking in mirrors and start looking around at what you have done. You guys worried about paid leave days a couple of years ago and made SE employees take them so it could help your books look better. I don’t know how that works but when in Huntsville that was the topic being discussed one day when I was there. So you guys save a few thousands of dollars and piss away over a hundred million in lost SE sales potential because that is how prudent German Siemens managers do things. Please explain the logic here to me?

“It is a shame that while Dan Staples and his team are trying hard to stay ahead of the pack in technical terms, the sales suppression team are also excelling in keeping their heads below the parapet.
I attended a 3D Seminar in UK the other week (Develop 3D Live), sponsored by Dell, AMD Firepro & Windows (interestingly, no Apple or Nvidia). The Gold sponsors were Autodesk (known for CAD software), Solidworks (known for CAD software) & Siemens (known for electricity generation and railway locomotives !?)
Once I could break into the staff’s holy-huddle on the stand I asked where Solid Edge was. I was directed to a line of writing about 1″ high near the floor on the back wall and told that Siemens offer so much that they didn’t want to be tied to one product at such an event. While the other stands were heaving, Siemens staff seemed to be enjoying their own company. Karsten Newbury had even flown over to give a keynote speech but Edge hardly got a mention. There was more mention of NX from the Red Bull Racing speaker.
I too have offered to support a user-group but have been told “feel-free”, but without a list of users and some heavyweight support (both required from Solid Edge) nothing will happen – nor has it.
Like you, I have to make my own way in the world so I will not be at SEU either. I was at the 1st in Huntsville, as you know, and I think I was the only “paying guest” from UK (if not Europe). It sounds like this year will be little different (except for me).
I have just signed up for 3 more years Edge support but having now been abandoned from the Newsgroup, as the NNTP contributors were apparently not worth Siemens’ effort to keep us online, there are fewer and fewer reasons to feel part of a community.
Who said work had to be fun?”

And to this users comment I would add who said corporate management had to be functional. Say, do you guys have dart boards to?

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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.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge SP2 Has Arrived

Posted on May 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Short post here. CAMWorks has posted for current customers an important release. We now have assemblies capability for CW4SE and SE. Add to the mix the upcoming changes to the Tech Data Base and great things are in store. I have a “beta” version of this on hand and while I have not had a chance to play with it this is proof things are moving quickly along. Now would be the time if you have been sitting on the fence to give CW4SE a good hard look if you are an SE customer who happens to also manufacture. I will have more to post on this after I get done with the glut of work over the next week and have time to play with new toys.

CW4SE is to me the biggest deal in the SE ecosphere this year and I hope you have a look.

http://camworks.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=99a7c340667821f4ee55fc3c5&id=c00bc81d3e&e=1458db190e takes you to the download link for current customers and

http://camworks.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=99a7c340667821f4ee55fc3c5&id=e579361745&e=1458db190e takes you to an introductory video.

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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.

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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.

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