SolidWorks Subscription

Hi All,

I started a blog a couple of weeks ago and I posted my thoughts on the
SolidWorks subscription service this morning. I thought this might be
an appropriate time to do so since the new "customer portal" will be up
soon. I know this topic comes up here from time to time and I'd be
intrested in knowing if my thoughts are in the majority or minority.
If you have a chance, check out the post
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/rob_rodriguez/ and add your comments.

 

Nice blog Rob.
I think though the chances of them changing anything are pretty small - it's
their way of harvesting $$$ from the hooked and dependent.They have never
seen the need to pay beta testers either despite the feedback....and they
don't talk on the forum...all in all I would say the customers perspective
counts for stuff all.

 

Thanks for posting your comments everyone. Looks like I'm in the majority.
I agree however, there probably won't be changes anytime soon.

 

I heartedly agree with you points. Especially that bug fixes and
patches should always be free!

I think that there is an even bigger issue to subscription/ tech
support in general and this is how efficient SW is as a program. SW
can have the best CAD software in the World, (and some would make this
claim) but if there are bugs or if the average user doesn't know how
to effectively use SW, then it doesn't matter how good it is. It is
just a matter of time before the competition uses this as leverage to
gain profit share. I purchased and used Inventor and was so unhappy
with the amount of time lost when dealing with bugs that I switched
over to SW's. The bottom line is that for any software company to be
long term successful, both the company and the user base must be
successful. SW's must make a reasonable amount of profit to stay in
business at a level that allows them to continue to develop new
features. But, at the same time, the user base needs to have the
latest bug fixes and there needs to be effective ways for the user base
to learn how to effectively use the software. The customer portal is a
good avenue to keep the user base be more efficient. I suspect that in
the long run that it may cost SW a lot more then they will ever receive
by nickel and dimming the user base.

I saw an example of this last month or so. After seeing a roll out for
the upcoming Inventor version a "new" feature was pretty
impressive. When I described this to one of the VAR's, the response
was, "Oh SW has had that for several versions now". A response
that I have heard more then once. The feature was Smart Parts. I
looked in the SW help and found very little. At the last SW user group
I asked if anyone knew anything about Smart Parts and even though there
are some fairly advanced users no one knew anything about it. I
wouldn't be surprised if SW didn't spend $1M to add that feature,
(to be competitive) and yet if the user base never learns how to use
such feature what good was it for SW to develop? I can guarantee you
that Autodesk is going to make sure that this "new" feature is
understood and used. What is even more frustrating is that since
Autodesk implemented many features after SW did, they actually did a
better job, (ie. cleaner, more intuitive, better documentation).
Apparently, not enough SW users ever figured out how to some of these
features for some of the obvious short comings to be identified and
corrected.

Another issue that I feel is related to all of this is the lack of use
of "wav" files. If a good library of "wav" files were ever to
be developed this could have a huge impact for user training and for
using some feature that is not typically used. Especially if there is
a decent index, (such as links in the help system). A few of the
VAR's have developed some of these systems and there are a few very
good ones that are free on the internet but if SW developed a
comprehensive system, (possibly as much as 500 to a 1000 short topics)
that even at a fairly expensive production rate divided by 400,000 user
or so would probably be less then $1 each. The point of all of this is
that it is in SW's best interest to make it as easy as possible for
the user base to successfully use the software.