SolidWorks World 2010, day 4: the final climax
February 3, 2010
To summarize in a few words what has happened today:
- A collection of awards given to different members of the network of groups of users (SWUGN). A recognition to those who are engaged to facilitate the implementation of what more appropriate to the users of the program.
- A competition between two designers, one of which used the version of SolidWorks 2010, and the other has been staged in 2011, to demonstrate the virtues of the new. In essence: the most common things are faster, and a large collection of new features has been added. Among so much virguería, I lost, but a few things have caught my attention: simplify the way design and represent the welds, on the one hand, and a system of designing pipes (or anything else like conceptually) very effective
- The list of the ten most requested features has been reviewed.
- It has been released the first of the features 'in the cloud' that will be available this year: the ability to share data (what they have already acronimizado as a PDS, by 'product Data sharing'). To do this, they are going to use the capabilities developed by Dassault Systèmes Enovia, and more specifically with the V6.
The most demanded features
SolidWorks, via its website, maintains a sort of Forum in which the users of the program requested new features. Not only that, each valued the requests of others, and vice versa. And in the end, is a list, whose ten most prominent members are:
- SolidWorks should autodesinstalarse in a clean way
- Increased stability
- Compatibility-level files between versions
- Possibility to include equations in data entry
- Best use of multicore processors
- Allow more types of features that sets
- A graphical map of references
- Possibility of 'leave hanging' children rather than delete them
- Exploited views of welds
- Simplify the requirements for graphics cards
SolidWorks seems to do quite requests of its users, among other reasons because it depends on your level of satisfaction. However, the "increasing stability" have the feeling that is the feature requested permanently. It must be so that they have told us also that the 2011 version this is one of the most improved. In a grafiquito without legend, the reliability of each version we the they have painted growing more and more.
The integration between SolidWorks and the rest of Dassault Systèmes is taking shape
Two facts are clear: Bernard Charlès, CEO of Dassault Systèmes, has been here from Monday to Wednesday (it is possible it was Sunday). It is the first time, apparently, which takes part in SolidWorks World, and when did it, it has done to fund. He has taken part in the most relevant presentations and press conferences.
On the other hand, Jeff Ray and Bernard Charlès have announced that all the 'computing in the cloud' that SolidWorks put at the disposal of its users will be based on which already exists in Enovia V6. ENOVIA is the specific management of life cycle of product (PLM) software, in a collaborative way, of the Dassault Systèmes group. SolidWorks has functions of PLM. ENOVIA is something like the older brother.
And there is also a third fact, not so clear but read between the lines: the possibilities of access data of Catia (or Catía or Catiá, depending on who read you) will increase. There has not been dates or levels of integration, but both Bernard and Jeff have clearly indicated that this was the path to follow. Despite this, Bernard Charlès has made it clear that this will not be a process of convergence between both products. On the contrary, Dassault Systèmes intends to clearly differentiate and specialize them (Catia incorporated more and more functions to design, emulate or simulate control systems, something that is now being done mostly with Matlab and LabView).
In short: the integration among the different members of the Dassault family is getting stronger. And by what follows, the catalyst has been precisely the 'cloud computing'.
A major change, but without the intention of forcing anyone
It is clear that move the software from your computer of the user to 'the cloud' means to stop selling software 'by user' licenses to offer 'software as a service' (which the Saxons called SaaS). This has many more implications of the are apparent, so a complicated path looms.
From the perspective of retailers, who are those who will have to sell 'this other thing' and in response to my question in this regard by Jeff Ray "the main advantage for retailers is that there will be a much lower entry barrier". That is, now, when a company wants to acquire a system's design 3D, as well as investment in the software of CAD, faced with the need for additional buy powerful, servers, workstations 'large' disks and (if the company is reasonable) adequate backup systems. With a system based on 'cloud computing', the initial investment is much more moderate. Opens the door to a greater number of potential customers. Probably, the case of a change of model, in which the volume is achieved expanding the basis rather than by adding height; and, as a service, to ensure income on a continuous basis.
On the other hand, Jeff Ray has assured us that "we will not force users, in the same way that have not done so far". In principle, there is both the possibility to use SolidWorks in the cloud how to use it in the traditional way. Don't want to think that this should lead to the production team (they call it R & D): at the same time maintain a double number of versions. The software 'in the cloud' and the software in a conventional computer are not in the same way. But, in the words of Oscar Torres, director of SolidWorks Iberia, "to us we will progress". It is a way of saying that SolidWorks likes big challenges.
