Parasolid on Mac OSX!!!

Maybe, just maybe we are gonna get the MS monkey off my back within a
few years. There isn't anything wrong with the Unix flavor you like,
and its stability, and I think SolidWorks deserves S-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

God knows (no not Billy) that Unix runs fine on the PCs of today.

Tens of millions of people have been schnookered on the concept of
following Uncle Billy to the land of a single universal stable
proprietary Billy-set operating system.

Bo

FOR RELEASE: Thursday, April 1, 2004
http://www.eds.com/news/news_release_template.shtml?rowid=3675

UGS PLM Solutions Announces Availability of its Industry Leading
Parasolid® Geometric Modeling Software For the Mac

New Parasolid Support Driven By Increasing Customer Demand For
State-of-the-Art 3D Applications On Mac OS X

 

Bo,
The Bain acquisition of UG flavors any press releases for the next few
months. What you ought to be concerned about is the forced march SW users
are about to do to the Catia product.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
Portland
www.machiningsolution.com

 

With 300,000 users in thousands of corporations, I doubt seriously
that Dessault would attempt such a 'forced march'.

If Desault did, I predict a lot of SolidWorks users would simply stop
cold and maintain their existing version of SolidWorks while they
evaluate the future. The disruption that a shift from Swks to Catia
would cause would not be taken by most users, by my uneducated guess.

With Parasolid ported to MacOSX (& Unix), that opens up doors for a
lot of things to happen which I like. There will probably be more 3D
modelers coming to the Mac as a result, and that is good for me.

I think Microsoft is trying to be everything to every electronic
device from desktop, laptop, palm, cellphone, pads, servers, grids,
games, tv, home appliances. As such, I think their OS is getting to
polluted. I have serious doubts they will deliver the 'latest,
greatest' in 2006-7. I don't want to risk my work to them any more
than I have to do. They will NEVER be my sole OS. I have to keep a
backup because I can't trust them.

Bo

 

Yeah, it's a move in the right direction!

..

 

Well Bo,
I am not so sure. Catia looks pretty good these days and if they can come up
with a palatable migration path it might not be the nightmare you ( and I
BTW ) think. I just don't think DSS will be very interested in continuing
their current licensing arrangement beyond some point. It will be very
interesting to watch the industry continue to consolidate.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
Portland
www.machiningsolution.com

 

I agree with Bo.

If Dassault attempted to try and flex their muscles this way (al-la
microsoft) we would simply freeze at a version, and evaluate and purchase a
competeing product. How do I know this ?? Well, it would pretty much be my
decision, and that's what I'd do.

Even if they offered us a good deal on Catia, I'd still dump em. I have no
desire to do business with a company I can't trust. Been there with PTC.

Regards

Mark

 

It isn't - you can't sell software that way and we don't. We also do not see
SW as a competitor. Different markets.
I also wonder why you think SWC is weak enough to be affected by any
concerns regarding the viability of their brand.
If you aren't interested in this you are also unconcerned about industry
trends and directions.

You don't make sales in news groups regardless of what you post. You can
OTOH learn something about what people think and why. At least you can if
you shut up and listen once in a while rather than blather.



"If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to
defend
yourself you should say: 'He obviously does not know me very well, since
there
are so many other faults he could have mentioned'."

Epictetus
--Enchiridion




--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
Portland
www.machiningsolution.com

 

J.R.,

Let's see, someone is discussing the subject of Parasolid on MAC and you, a
reseller of another 3D software package, come back with

"What you ought to be concerned about is the forced march SW users are about
to do to the Catia product."

This comment is not pertinent to the subject at hand. It seems poised simply
to raise doubt about the viability of the SolidWorks product yet you offer
not substantiation to the claim.

Then, you are seemingly surprised and offended that someone implies you have
an agenda.

Curious.

Most of us have a strong interest in the industry and, certainly, anything
to do with the future of SolidWorks. You pretty much state it as a known
fact that this "forced march" is imminent. If you are not simply raising
FUD, and if there is some merit to your claim, why don't you share it with
us. If not, you really shouldn't be surprised that people are skeptical
about your motives and you really shouldn't insult them for being skeptical.

JJ

 

Ok,
I will.

1) It makes little sense for DSS to continue to pay for a third party kernel
when they own two good ones already.
2) UG is the toughest of the DSS competitors and the loss of revenue UG
would suffer should DSS move from parasolid would open the market to Catia
in ways it currently is not. Ask an SDRC user about the migration path to
UG.
3) The Catia product has an exceptional interface. The learning curve
buggaboo has dissapeared.
4) Catia has real integration in the manufacturing sense. SW is a kluge, at
best, in this regard.
5) End to end manufacturing integration is the future. Anything else is
beating a dead horse. The only question is timing.
6) The industry continues to consolidate. This process is not just "weeding
out" the weak, it is real consolidation.
7) I was not offended in the least and I have no "agenda" in this group
beyond the intelligent discussion of issues that affect the comunity at
large with others.
8) The Missler product is not " another 3D package". Were you to suggest to
one of my customers that they switch to SW they would want to know how they
were going to do the 80 percent of their work SW has no solution for. The
question is nonsensical.
9) Who do you think is more familiar with the broad market - a reseller who
sees customers and prospects from a large cross section of industry or an
end user narrowly focussed on a particular class of job?

Now,
Perhaps you could tell me what you think.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
Portland
www.machiningsolution.com

 

Cliff,

For a big company with terrabytes of legacy data, it can be horrendous. In
our case it would only be a minor problem because we wouldn't have to
convert everything.

Besides, this hypothetical scenario would require data migration in and of
itself. Might as well start fresh with someone new than continue with
someone who just stabbed you in the back.

Allot has changed since you last messed with this stuff. The days of the
overbearing, overpriced, manipulative CAD company are pretty much over.
There's too much competition. Even the big players have reduced their prices
from outrageous to unreasonable.

That being said, I think Dassault is smart enough to realize that such a
move would cost them at least half of the 300,000 SW seats they now profit
from. It wouldn't be a very good business decision at all.


Regards

Mark

 

J.R.,

I think that Dassault is more likely to switch the SW kernel from parasolid
to ACIS than it is to migrate the customer base to Catia. There are some
benefits to keeping a high end and a low end product. On the one hand it
allows you to keep one product to appeal to small and midsize customers who
could not afford a high product price and annual maintenance. On the other,
it allows you to market your high price and high margin product to the
really big customers. This model has worked for many years for Dassault,
PTC, and UG. The other problem with moving to Catia is that it goes against
the entire business model which is based upon having partners for
capabilities beyond basic modeling. (Admittedly, SW has recently been trying
to control more of this directly.) So I don't believe the SW user base is in
any immediate danger of being pushed to Catia.

Of course, I could be way off. I think that some of your opinions are
interesting and maybe you are right. I really don't care to get into a
debate. What I take some issue with is that you state your interpretations
as fact, i.e. "........ the forced march SW users are about to do to the
Catia product.". This statement implies that you have specific knowledge of
an imminent event. You don't. You have your viewpoint and interpretations
and other people have theirs.

Furthermore, I know that many of us in this newsgroup have been at this for
a good portion of our careers and are extremely knowledgeable about the CAD
industry - and not just one product or small sector of it. For you to
classify people here as being "narrowly focused" and to assume that our
interpretations are, therefore, inferior to yours is something I find to be
distasteful and a bit arrogant.

JJ

 

John,

They (SW) have a contract with UGS that they need to honor. If, at some
point, ACIS can offer the same performance and stability as Parasolid, they
may switch. Right now ACIS has allot of theoretical capability, but it's
dreadfully slow and requires twice the memory as Parasolid to do the same
work. I don't think Catia's kernal is really portable at this point (could
be wrong) but they have some serious performance and stability issues as
well, (I've used ver 5 some)

Sounds reasonable on the surface (very thin layer here). A deeper problem is
big CAD companies "can't" push customers around anymore. It pisses em off,
and there's too much competition. The average SW shop is around 10 seats (we
have 8). These are not big companies, and most have allot more freedom to
change CAD products if necessary.

Having used Ver4 (quite a bit) and 5 (briefly) I can say this is very true.
I can also say, for a certainty, that this would never have happened if
companies like Solidworks hadn't "proven" that 3D CAD doesn't have to be
difficult

Yes it does, but as to whether your enterprise would benefit enough from
this to offset the enormous cost is a matter of individual needs. Having
seen it first hand, I know for a fact the allot of Catias new seat sales are
the result of clever salesmanship to upper management, rather than carefully
considered decisions based on actual need.

This isn't to say it's not a good system, it is. It's just too vertically
integrated to be financially practical for most small to midsize companies.
Everything is a module. Surfacing is even split into at least four different
ones. By the time you put together a bundle that will actually do what you
need, you've spent some serious bucks. I don't know for sure, but I would
estimate that a single seat with adequate surfacing, large assembly
capability, and 2-1/2 thur 5 axis machining would cost in excess of 50K.
Only large companies can afford this, and even then, it might be overkill.

Yea, companies are consolidating, but it's not leading to the place you
think it is (not for American companies anyway). We do business with several
very large companies, Raytheon, Motorola, H.P., and others. What's happening
"here" is that the engineering depts of these large corporations are
becoming less efficient. Combining corporate cultures, compressed
development schedules, red tape, offshore manufacturing and tooling, reduced
engineering budgets, and many other things have combined to make new product
engineering and development almost impossible internally. Most times, we're
contacted by divisional engineering managers. They have a project, a
schedule, and not enough money or time to tackle it on their own. They're so
happy that we can get the engineering and development done, they don't care
what CAD system we use. Many of them re-model our stuff in their native CAD
system, and take full credit but thats OK. We have our fee and the next
project.

No...most American companies have allot worse problems than "end to end
manufacturing and integration" (of course there are some exceptions in the
aerospace and automotive sectors). This may fit the European business model,
but then the E.U. is more protective of it's industry than we are.

80% is a bit heavy don't ya think. I'm sure Top Solid is a fine product,
most European CAD/CAM systems are. I just don't know anyone that uses it
(and I know a few people in the industry). I went to your web page and was
kind of dissapointed. The information that I wanted wasn't there. The
product/products were described in very basic terms. I kinda got the
impression that If I wanted details, I'd have to go through the sales/demo
thing (hint, not a good idea these days). It seems it's split and bundled
much the same as Catia, Pro-E, U.G. etc. . I'm assuming, correct me if I'm
wrong, that you share the same potential market as these guys. If you
looking to sell to the small to medium market, you'll be more sucessfull if
your more upfront. Most of us want to know detailed capability and price
prior to the sales stuff.

Sometimes I wonder. Besides Catia, most European CAD/CAM systems haven't
done very well in the U.S.. Why do you suppose that is ? In most cases,
European software is superior to homegrown stuff.

Could it be marketing ? support ?


Regards

Mark

 

i sure as hell hope you're wrong about this. We sometimes go years between
accessing a file, and if I can't open my SW2004 files in SW2007 I'm going
to be sorely pissed off.

-nick e.

 

I think there's some merit to what J.R said because Catia and UG are
already running on Unix. I'm assuming that the port to Mac from unix
isn't that difficult. Since SWX is a windows only program it's
logical that DSS would keep it that way and offer Catia as their Mac
solution.

 

Can you say "Can you say cost of about $25k-50k without choking"?

Bo

 

And now software designers for Wintel know they are going to face a
major reprogramming effort with the 2006-2007 LongHorn/LongWait is
released (now with fewer new features if the news of last week is any
bit true).

So Microsoft is taking about a dozen years between the release of
Windows 95 before it gets "semi-modern" in the OS.

If I was a designer, I would probably be cringing and wondering about
the desirability of having a Unix version of the software ready.
Linux, UNIX & BSD UNIX/MacOSX is not going to stand still, but I
predict they are much more "predictable", than the LongWait from MS.

Bo