What Ive learned of SW's reputation contrast with ProE and Iv...

SW is the most popular with the most users.. it does not offer pipe
routing. there must be a reason for its popularity and broad use.

From what I can tell SW is way easier to draw with that the other tw
(thats what drew me to this ng in the first place),,, o, and if you
dont do piping etc... that lack is not relevant.


Inventor is considered an up and comer, not on a par yet with ProE or
SW.. but coming. that was a year go, its probably closer now.

My view ....if you add SE into that mix....
...., is that its easier than ProE and Inventor and close to or on a
par with SW, SW getting a very significant edge because of its use
base and ad- in's available. . synch is fine but still in
development, and advantage compared to IV, but not so much of an
advantage as compared to SW which is easier in the first place.


SE gets an edge from me as posted earlier in a few categoris..a huge
edge in more than a few cases... and some huge rasberries from pore ol
philsie here (who can barely chew gum and type at the same time) on
items, and management strategies Ive mentioned in the last two days.



***
Prognosis. SW will prevail for some time in this market... ProE is
well established, Ive never used it..the fact of its establishment
speaks for itself. . it will do well.... IV will continue its
development, already way past the bleeding edge in many of its aspects
(but complex).and of course it will be here for long term, and
considering its market position generally may become dominant...IV
will have to get easier to use for that aspect to hit high gear,

***

SE will do well over the long term IF... it sells its library in one
piece for a competitive price, or if it chooses to break out the 650
parts of its library into separate profit centers,, sells those as a
small fraction of the total price, not a 10,000 percent premium.
Maybe at the most a 200% premium for fractional sales... this approach
will make them not just cost effective but a price beater for many
users.

Is current management showing signs of such advanced thinking? one
can hope.



and of course the libraries MUST have all parts used in that venue to
do a job... if say nuts are missing from the nuts and bolts library,
or a full range of washers or bolt types... its not usable in the
broad spectrum of the jobs people do withh nuts and bolts... even IF
some vendors call socket head bolts a 'specialty'.. you cant lock
those out on that basis..


........ same with wiring/ conduit/terminals etc valves and fittings. /
steel for the frame program etc... usable, stadarnd sizeable each item
at the least (Iv on bolts for instance offers 3 tollerance ranges,
hard tight fit into the tapped hole, medium clearance fit, and loose
fit..with different hole sizes specified for each.. these decisions
need to be made by hands-on pro's (not guys *saying they are ME's or
hands-on, etc but dont know what standard fittings are...and have a
few decades in the field and know the relevances.)

****


All of these however may loose signficant sales. market share and
influecne to TurboCAD if TC keeps it up with the advances (it is
already dominant in its market niche) . V16 has just come out with
significant upgrades on solids, parametric features, and historyless
direct modeling, rendering etc. and you can route pipe and bends at
mouse speed.... Im not up to any great extent on any of that
though.

V15 pro mechancal retails for $1,000 the uprade is $150, there is no
annual maintenance. it imports and exports to all the majors in most
or all of the fromats ive seen mentioned here. ..Ive tried none of
that though.. It has no built in CAM, thats an ad..so you can see its
probably not the hottest move for that market... it has
no VAR's..it support is free, its tutorials are on Youtube.

***

Other programs Im looking at for plant piping (search google) have
all the piping and process specialty piping and exotic fittings, tanks
and process diagrams you can edit... a big deal for what i do....and
are not complicated with al lot of things one sees in IV for example,
3 different fit parameters on machine screw threads etc... Not so
bad, there is a good chance I might buy one of those programs Im in
the early research stages...

what I might do is try to locate an older copy from one of my frenz in
da bidness..as they move to another platform.. For them they need to
move up, for me, a 2 or 3 year old program would be more than
sufficient.


Phil scott

 

Funny, my SW package does piping and includes all the hardware in the
library. JB must have told you there was no pipe routing in SW.

glk

 

not JB, someone else probably.

does SW do pipe routing? Does its pipe library include valves and
spools etc>
Im real damn interested... is piping an extra or does it come
with the standard SW program.


Phil scott

 

Worth a look, perhaps:
http://www.intergraph.com/global/ca/ppm/default.aspx

 

That tells little.

 

Nothing on their Web site or in product lit?
One would first have to have a legal copy of SW to sign up with
I assume ...
Is it a banquer-free zone?

 

It comes with the Premium package.

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/mechanical-design-software-matrix.htm#

 

Well, what I would do, if you want information on routing for
solidworks, go over to the solidworks forums and ask all of your
questions in the routing sub-forum.

 

yep, jb free. and a pretty good community..

 

Solidworks Premium (significant extra cost in purchase and annual maintenance)
does Routed Systems (pipe/tube/cable). I have not tried it yet.

 

Of course the Marketing docs tell little. That reflects what they know.

I made the same observation at the Pro-E stand at a trade show I recently
visited. The (sales?)man who tried to chat to me had just enough English to say
hello, and to repeat the words I spoke. At least his English is better than my
Mandarin. I figured I would not get much tech support there.

Actually, the best SW people hang out here also.