SW 2006 better ???

PLONK!!

Ditto.

 

To which I ask: Did these larger number of bugs result from
off-shoring the CAD Code Grinders to Asia?

I would hate to switch, but the name of the game with 3D CAD is
productivity always going up...not downward.

Bo

 

I personally use Terminex. Seems to get rid of the bugs every time,
100% guarantee.

Bo

 

Cam,

That's understandable, within limits. The point is that "now" it's way out
of balance, The resulting problems are compounding too fast, and spiraling
out of control. If it keeps up, it's just going to get more difficult to get
new, or keep old customers.


Regards

Mark

 

Good question. I don't know that enough time passed between when I
left and when they were purchased. Shortly after I left, another very
large microscope company bought them, and rolled the technology into
their own microscopes (interestingly enough, we were working on a
top-secret machine that used the same technology for beam generation
that this other company had. It would have been KILLER). If you are
familiar with scanning microscopes, you know that a wet sample must be
dried; once dried, it must be coated with a conductive surface to keep
charge from the beam from building up on the surface. A very high
vacuum must be pulled as well so that there is nothing in the path of
the electron beam. With our microscope, we actually INTRODUCED water
vapor into the sample chamber and created a new type of "gaseous
amplification". This had tremendous benefits, the most important being
that a sample of anything could be put in, wet, dry, uncoated, didn't
matter, and within about 30 seconds be imaging. The "problem" with
this is that the beam spread (from hitting the gas molecules)
effectively lowered the surface resolution. So, instead of our sales
people pushing the benfits of our machine, they were always fighting
the question of resolution. Anyway, this was a brilliant system, and
I'm happy to think back to those days. The "job" sucked, but the
"work" was fantastic. I did a lot of lightpipe/photo-multiplier and
low-noise amplifier designs. Now, I design and manufacture toys... ;^)

Mike Tripoli

 

MM - Most of your sentments shared here.

SolidWorks had a really good history of blazing a clear trail and
developing some really awesome new stuff. The upgrades are very often
times meaningful and great new functionality gets rolled out.

Then BANG! They stop refining it and it gets stagnated. We long time
users and the day-in-day out users feel that stagnation most. That's
the down side. There are other areas where the lack of funtionality is
so obvious to the daily user and the stall point so unbearable that it
really filles one with "piss & vinegar" and a lingering feeling that
"they" as a company just don't care.

In a nutshell:

They are Great Innovaters, but Mediocre Refiners.

We as Daily users need the Refinement badly, but we also need the "new"
stuff too.

I personally would love to see a 20-30% redistribution of output (or
percieved input) towards refinement and a little less on the new stuff.
Frankly, robustness and fillling in the missing blanks are very very
improtant to daily users, this one in particular. New features are
also needed and appreciated, but not if things get worse to support
that effort.

Later,

SMA

 

Not that I'm an expert, but I do a lot of work in Asia. Perhaps you've
had bad experiences with "code grinders" from Asia, but I have to say,
all of the ones that I have dealt with are very professional and
experts in their field. They go through much more "professional
training experience" there, than here. I'm not being defensive, but I
wouldn't blame it on the coders per se. Like anything, if the
management of a project is bad, no amount of engineering expertise
will save it. I would *guess* that the boys here in the states are
writing the spec's and directing the future of the product, not the
guy doing the coding.

Mike Tripoli

 

The quality control is what matters, not where it is made.

You ever notice that Hondas and Toyotas made in the USA are very
reliable while Fords and GMs made in the USA are not?

 

Stefan,

I keep tellin you eastern Euro guys, You gotta work on your english swearing
skills. Sounds real lame man....

Mark

 

"Do you think 2006 will be better ?"

Of course it will be better.

SaladWorks 2006 will probably feature the OCC bike on
the CD cover.

"SW isn't really an engineering software company anymore.
They're a marketing organization that "used" to develop
pretty good engineering software."

True, but you and others will continue to need the security of
purchasing from what is without a doubt the market leader
and will remain the market leader and won't push a small
company like VX to get better at marketing and at
documentation.

"If the real situation is even close to what I've surmised,
they have alot more to fix than just their software. In
fact, the software will never get fixed as long as the
current company philosophy remains as it is."

"Vert,,, very sad"

Even with this admission, you and many others here won't make
the effort to learn VX to see if you can break it or if it's
better than SolidWorks and then think about if it's worth it
to switch and dump a package that can't get the job done.

The SolidWorks situation is not the only thing that is very,
very sad, Mark.

jon

 

Your not wrong but that you actually hope your wrong is a sign you
still have not accepted what is reality... your not alone in this
regard.

jon

 

Out of Lithium again?

 

Mark
They appear to be locked in an arms race with Autodesk - churning out
releases faster and faster and competing on the transfer of the 2D
market to 3D - The basic operations that you use when first start on SW
or Inventor work fine and it's a revalation compared to detailing 2D
drawings, so productivity goes up... Solidworks claim a larger share of
the transfer 2D market and crank out another version with more bells and
whistles that appeal to the 2D transfer market to keep up with Inventor...
This was definitely the impression I got from the recent SM2005 show in
the UK...
Meanwhile, people who have been using Solidworks for longer than 6
months and the new converts to 3D that realise that it's way more than a
new form of drafting are pushing the envelope, creating larger
assemblies, more complex geometry and being asked to do this in less and
less time to keep cranking the productivity up.... and trip over the
loose cables left by Solidworks in it's rush to get the latest version
out. But by this time we've all shelled out our $8000 (that's how much
SW is in the UK at the mo!) or whatever and are pretty much hooked -
it's a big jump to make to shift to Inventor, Pro E, SolidEdge or
whatever, as long as they don't make a real howler, we ain't going to shift.
Hopefully this arms race will run out of steam when the 2D to 3D
transfer market has been exhausted and there will be a period of first
stabilisation (tidy up the loose cables, clear the decks) and then real
innovation - I don't see much change in the methods of doing stuff since
my last visit to the show in 2001.
Whether this will happen with SW2006, I don't think so, but by SW2008
(which will be out in 2006 natch.!) maybe...
Where the blame lays for this - market forces. Autodesk are a pretty
formidable opponent - it appears that something similar is going on on
the viz/rendering side - Autodesk are pushing Alias and Softimage pretty
hard - again the intake of new customers is the key area, once they are
on board, it's going to take a real F-up to get people to move. The
recent (ish) huge price drops by first Alias and then Softimage are a
bad sign I think - I can see one or the other getting squeezed out of
the market.
That's my take, based on intuition and observation over the past 4 or 5
years - might be complete and utter B*****ks though!
Cheers
Deri

 

Should have been over more than a decade ago.
WHERE do they find NEW 2D folks???? OLD trade
schools?

Except for things like wiring diagrams on occasion I've
not done anything in 2D since 1984 .... and that was mostly
minor revisions on stuff that was old at the time.

 

Cliff
There's plenty of the poor unfortunate souls out there! I've just tried
helping someone who's trying to do 3D stuff in autoCAd 2000 'cause his
boss can't see the point in upgrading - doesn't think it's worth
it...... I think my boss would be wearing the monitor as a hat if that
were me! I can think of quite a few in my sector (marine stuff) that
think 2D CAD is state of the art and the 3D stuff I churn out is
overkill. It's not us CAD monkeys that need our attitudes re arranging!

 

<ROFL>

Entertaining but not too educational <G> I get a kick from his one on one
conversations with industry heads, Do well with me and I'll treat you well,
but if you fail to correspond by personnal phone call from your office wait
untill I write up my big piece in a news group!. Hah, hah, hah what a joke,
what a joke.


http://www.solidworks.com/pages/news/viewrelease.html?prid=239

Three top German universities standardize engineering instruction using
SolidWorks software

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/news/viewrelease.html?prid=207

Mälardalen University purchases 500 licenses of SolidWorks Education
Edition to launch students' engineering careers

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/news/viewrelease.html?prid=210

Four university teams win SolidWorks' 3D Design & Analysis Award for
race car designs at Formula Student Competition

http://www.cosmosm.com/pages/news/press releases/2004_0105.html

14 Universities Worldwide Choose COSMOSDesignSTAR for FEA Education

http://www.cimtalk.com/news/nra/nra103.html

NASA Tech Briefs, an industry trade magazine, recognized NEiWorks as its Product
of the Month and placed it as a finalist in its Product of the Year competition.
NEiWorks is a design analysis tool fully integrated within the SolidWorks 3D
modeling environment.

John

 

I can see that it's VOCABULARY TIME for jb again.

[
Main Entry: ap·o·plexy
Pronunciation: 'a-p&-"plek-sE
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English apoplexie, from Middle French & Late Latin;
Middle French, from Late Latin apoplexia, from Greek apoplExia, from
apoplEssein to cripple by a stroke, from apo- + plEssein to strike
—more at PLAINT
Date: 15th century
: STROKE 5
]

HTH

 

Even old firms can use 3D:
http://www.gdbiw.com/company_overview/history/default.htm

 

"They appear to be locked in an arms race with Autodesk"

Appear ? LOL there is no appear about it.... it's been this
way for many years. Most SolidWorks users don't want to
really think about what this means and has meant as far as
getting the needed tools in SaladWorks.

Meanwhile PTC must be loving every minute of it. If PTC
keeps focusing on making Wildfire easier to use and other
CAD/CAM companies (VX included)don't get a clue on how to
market, guess who is going to experience substantial growth
when power users get sick of being feed a constant diet of
SaladWorks. UGS is also moving very quickly to make
SolidEdge much better after ignoring the real market for
years.

Naturally, SolidWorks product loyalists don't see the problem
or don't realize how long this has been going on. It's impossible
to produce a great product when everything you do is based on
Autodesk. Is it any wonder SaladWorks has so many problems
and will continue to have problems ?

"Hopefully this arms race will run out of steam when the 2D
to 3D transfer market has been exhausted and there will be a
period of first stabilisation"

Nope. You will have a product that will have to be
completely redone from the bottom up... easier to start
over.

"Where the blame lays for this - market forces."

People who feel they have to go with the market leader and
use what everyone else is using. SaladWorks is the next big
thing.... less carbs, better for you. The problem is it's
not very filling and leaves one with the incomplete feeling
of not being substantial enough.

"it's going to take a real F-up to get people to move."

Why care what the masses do ? It's a losing hand.

"But by this time we've all shelled out our $8000 (that's
how much SW is in the UK at the mo!"

VX doesn't play that game and can be had for less than half
that price in the UK.

jon

 

IOW, SaladWorks will still be SaladWorks with all the same problems
that happen when a company is driven by marketing and solely focused on
Autodesk like SolidWorks Corp. has been for years.

jon