SolidWorks' VAR Business Model??

Last Friday our company was informed that our region was being
consolidated from multiple VARs to one VAR. Our current VAR was being
removed and our licenses were being transferred to the one regional
VAR.
We were also told that this directive was coming from SolidWorks.
Has anyone else heard of this happening and was it truly coming from
SolidWorks corporate? I have checked SolidWorks' website and there is
nothing there stating that VARs are being consolidated.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

 

I have a feeling you are getting a half-truth. In other words, enough of
the truth as it affects your organization.

Dassault is going through a rebranding of their image and SolidWorks is now
going to be branded more inline with D's other product offerings. I expect
a lot of changes on the SolidWorks front as it finally gets assimilated into
the D organization instead of the merry individualism it has been able to
maintain to date.

Since my consulting work is now getting more and more forced to use
Solidworks (a product I haven't invested into yet) and a potential change of
employers coming my way to move from Edge to Works, leaves me wondering what
potential changes are REALLY in store for Solidworks. So far, no rebranding
of SolidEdge under the larger corporate umbrella has been overlly beneficial
for that particular product. I think Works will get the short end of this
deal also.

--Scott

 

Every now and then a VAR gets booted, usually because they aren't making
their sales numbers, but sometimes for technical quality issues or
because they tried to pull a fast one. SW occasionally culls the field
for various reasons. I highly doubt that this has anything to do with
Dassault, or even that the different situations are related. The SW
reseller chain is a pretty cutthroat business, and VARs come and go.

 

Swizzle, Brian, and Matt,
Thank you for your responses.

The main reason for the post was to determine if this was an isolated
event at this time or is SolidWorks looking at changing their overall
dealings with VARs.

In other post within this UG, there is a lot of questioning to the
value in the "Value-Added Reseller." Maybe I was being optimistic
that this was the first move to have users contact SolidWorks
directly.

Thank you again for your responses.

 

I checked out your website. MN, ey?

I'm surprised that with the size of your machine designs that you are not
using SE. In terms of where SE and SW actually play one-up-manship, Edge
handles massive assemblies much better than Works. And your machines look
massive.

I'd like to hear about some of your assembly techniques to maintain
performance using Works.
I also see you have openings for Mechanical Engineers. I have no intention
of ever moving back to the snow and cold, but I do consulting work - hint
hint. Remotely.

 

- they're called 'caves' ...

Rick ;-)

 

And speaking of top notch consultants very familiar with large machine
design for the food and beverage industry. Too bad his toilets flush funny.
And he can find me in this newsgroup as well as the SE newsgroup to be able
to harass me. Back to the bbsnotes for me.

Thanks, Rick.

--Scott W.

 

Actually, they are following the path that Autodesk has taken. Small
resellers are becoming extinct. Large resellers have lots of pull with
Adesk, SW and others. It saves the software maker big bucks by having less
shipping and billing addresses... Autodesk started this trend about 10
years ago, and uncounted good resellers bit the dust.

It's a shame too, since most large resellers are box movers and in bed with
large corporations with hundreds of seats. The small ( 1-50 user) customer
is left in the lerch.

I was one of those resellers forced to merge or be terminated. I'm much
happier now that I just do training and consulting without playing the
political games.

--
Dennis Jeffrey, AICE, MICE
260-399-6615
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 11SP2, AIP 2008
http://www.design-excellence.com

 

"Maybe I was being optimistic that this was the first move to have
users contact SolidWorks directly."

The SolidWorks Corp. VAR model is probably the major reason that
SolidWorks has sold so well so quickly. The drawback to end users in
how SolidWorks Corp. protects their VAR's. SolidWorks Corp. lets their
VAR's make money on end users by not putting a real effort into
documentation included with SolidWorks. This way SolidWorks VAR's can
make money on training end users with *exclusive* SolidWorks training
materials from SolidWorks Corp. Some SolidWorks VAR's will sell these
exclusive SolidWorks Corp. training materials to end users without the
end user having to pay the VAR for the training class. Another
alternative is e-bay which seem to have a plethora of exclusive
SolidWorks VAR training materials for sale.


Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

Over a decade or so? But you whine about it.

You expect them to provide support & training for Pro-E, CATIA &
banquercadcam too?

Unlike what you just claimed in the line above.

If it's exclusive SolidWorks VAR training materials who stole it?
Making much money?

BTW, How OUTDATED & OBSOLETE is it? These things can change rapidly.