Anyone has an idea when SP5.0 will be available? TIA JM
Interestingly enough, SP4.1 for PDMWorks has just been withdrawn due to a bug, SP4.2 will be the next installment in the ongoing saga of SolidWorks 2006. John Layne www.solidengineering.co.nz
I for one think that the early development of 2007 has resulted in a slowdown in the Service Packs for 2006. Just look at the time intervals for relase of 2006 service packs and tell me if it is not obvious what is going on: More development hours into 2007 than fixing 2006 to where IT SHOULD BE. If I am wrong, I will appologize. Bo
Obviously I have no inside info from Solidworks headquarters, so I can't be sure. But unfortunately, an educated guess leads me to the same conclusion as your's. Cheers, Gil
I agree Dale.....just look at the SPRs list for sp5....it's huge. Also, with 2007 beta testing done....all those fixes going into 2006 sp5 have to be consolidated into 2007 so I imagine there is more time spent do this and testing. And...being the last sp for 2006, it helps to make sure it's done right so if they take more time to do it....then good. Avoiding sp5.1 would be good.
well sp5 always comes a couple of weeks after sp0 of the next release in my memory. what's the rush after 4 sp SW is almost useable right ;o)
You must be delusional, Neil, lol "SW is almost useable" Ha-ha! now that is the most funniest post I have seen here, P If SW2007 Office Pro is as crap as SW2006 office Pro, it is going to be thrown in the bin. Hole call-outs, = crap Hole patterns = crap Sheet metal closed corners = crap Pdmworks copy projects = crap Pdmworks view configurations = no NOT crap , just none existent!! Pdmworks drawing documents check-in = crap I like the pretty interface though! lol ) SW2006 Office Pro sp 4.1 Windooooze xp Pro Dual Amd 4800 4Gb ram PciE Nvidia 3400 2x Raptors in raid 0 1Gb Network Have a good day! )
If Apple produced an iPod & iTunes with as many glitches as SolidWorks, the iPod would be a FAILED PRODUCT, and its market share would be much smaller, if nill at this point. The only reason I can see that 3D CAD software companies get away with this, is that EVERY CAD COMPANY SHIPS BETAWARE!!!!!!!!!!! So we users have no other choice. Buy AutoDesk's BetaWare or ProE BetaWare, etc. Bo
An ipod is realtively simple compared to the programming and complexity that goes into an 3d cad program. Now compare it to something like building an aircraft carrier.....of course in that case....there are reasons large ships go through a 6 month "shakedown" cruise....to workout and fix the problems (bugz). And are you saying that Solidworks is a failed product? If that was the case and no one could get their job done...then I'd expect to find at least a few hundred or thousand of the several hundred thousand users out there on the various message boards saying so. Instead...you are seeing the norm with any complex software program....a few vocal users complaining about an issue that effects what they do. I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset....I've running into a particular bug that was a real showstopper for our company and was quite upset. Wouldn't done me much good to rant and rave about it cause when I questioned other users on the net....no one was encountering the issue cause they didn't do what we did with the software and thus were unaffected. Luckily the problem got fixed when I complained to my Var that this was a showstopper.
Good response Jason, and it deserves a reply. I just wish that SolidWorks was not "released" as a form of Beta when my subscription is due. If I agree to re-up my subscription, then the software ought to be full-release quality, or I don't have to pay my money until it gets to SP5 and I can pay my subscription at that time. Bo
Bo, You should change your renewal date to late August, then you would get the software at SP5ish. The only downfall is that you will be a year behind everyone else.
Bo is exactly right to bitch about the quality of SW. CAD software is appalling. It is barely above crap ware. Unfortunately far too many people are willing to keep buying crap and fool themselves that they are using 'professional' tools.
Well, I agree to the extent that it is the release of what software developers often call v0.1 thru 0.9 as Betaware which I have to pay for which SolidWorks calls production ready software. Once SolidWorks gets to v1.0, I think it should be January of each new year's release. The competitive world pushes companies to release early, but every single software user has been bitten by bugs, broken features, incomplete abilities and so forth. What I see is the push to maintain yearly releases which results in software designers still coding last years bugs out while trying to code next year's release. Someone is finally going to have to say that yearly releases appear to NOT be justified. Why not make it every 18 months and make life easier on the customers and developers. Bo
Yup agree fully. The short cycle is a major pain in the butt. Programmers can't meet a reasonable standard by release time and barely get it finished in the 9 months they have. In the case of 06 you can bet there are 200 bugs that are not going to be fixed in it's life....you have to get 07 for fixes for those. Of course everyone is expected to be ecstatic about this situation and just falling over themselves to write another check and repeat it...250 new features...blah blah blah No wonder customers get hosed off. SW did everyone a big service by bringing us 3D. It would be great if they could bring us a practical deal as well. Enough crap ware.Dare to be different SW. Break out of the trap and give us tools of a standard for professional use!
The huge elephant in the room is this: Why is it necessary to have such a hyper-active release schedule? I mean major releases (2005,2006,2007) NOT service releases. It certainly doesn't benefit the end-users! This is really a rhetorical question because we all know the reason. Every 2 years would be just fine with me, assuming that a lot of the effort that goes into generating a major release every 9-12 months went into tweaking the current release until it was right. Some s/w manufacturers (McNeel for instance) actually add new functionality to their SR's. I know it's a pipe dream, but if someone came out with an open-source MCAD program that people were willing to give a real chance just think of the repercussions.....ah, never mind. It'll never happen because we would never give it a chance to flourish. Mike
If the game could be changed and income stay the same then there probably isn't a problem with having a longer cycle however I wonder if may people would be willing to pay twice the present subs in one hit. Unfortunately SW want to be 'competitive' in the CAD market and they assume they have to put out stuff aggressively in the same way as the rest to keep everyone's attention and get market share.Perhaps this is the fault of seeing CAD as a market driven business rather than a service. Presently CAD holds your business captive to upgrades and sp schedules and the bugs kills productivity.If SW really are interested in serving engineering and your business they need to do something about either the quality or their plan. If they are just another profit craving corporate there is little hope things will improve. I had the impression SW philosophy was different. At least from Autodesk anyway. This is ultimately why I chose their product over the others. I suppose we can comfort ourselves that everyone is penalised to the same extent but in all honesty the quality is atrocious for a professional grade product. Open source...ok why not... but I think you will find you need a fair number of programmers working full time on the code as well to make progress. Presently I think salvation lies in objecting to the present offering in significant numbers to force change on the industry.
I am almost sure Euclid (Matra datadivision) went open source, but as I can't find anything about it, I suppose it went down the drain. There is still open cascade ( http://www.opencascade.org) , but I believe it is more like a set of bricks to build 3d apps. The point is that there is more demand for an O.S. or an "office" suite than a CAD system. And then much less support. JM
