Solid Edge University 2013 and Manufacturing

There are times where knowing about things and not being able to talk about them is a mixed blessing. It is a privilege to be told and shown things in confidence. But it is a PITA when you know you have good things to share but can’t until the OK to talk is given. Especially when you have a blog and would love to get the word out.

Back in Solid Edge University 2012 there were a few things shown and integrated CAM for the future was one of them. It was public then and still is but that is about all we can say about it. Today however I was given a teaser video and with great delight I will share it with you.

http://youtu.be/X-qPOaQ4-7o

I am excited, I know how droll can you be when software excites you, but I am and you have a clue why now. This is only one of other things that will happen at SEU2013. There is a philosophical shift at Solid Edge towards a complete manufacturing ecosphere and an emphasis on design to manufacture for engineering professionals and companies large and small. They have a plan and are adhering to it to be the best mid range MCAD solution in the world and this will now include integrated applications that will allow for design and then to parts out of your door to customers. After all one of the largest manufacturing conglomerates in the world, Siemens, bought UGS (NX and SE and the rest that goes with them) with the intent to use it to enhance their own production and design. I think better than any other major CADCAM software writing company out there these guys understand and work towards real world efficiency and we get to benefit from this as software customers.

OH, and can I say with complete confidence there are NO CLOUDS in our future and no kernel changes either. Life is good when you know where your software of choice is headed and their leadership tells you so in plain English and then shows you with their actions they mean what they say. How refreshing in this day and time to deal with people who put their cards on the table rather than a bunch of obfuscatory PR corporate leader BS meant to gull you into places your companies can’t really afford to be.

There will only be one time where it can all come together for Solid Edge and this year will be it. If you can possibly be there I would most certainly advise it. Hope to see you there!

http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu

Solid Edge for Manufacturing Series

I have decided to take a bit of a new direction regarding  MCAD specific program commentary. While I am interested in what is happening in the MCAD world I don’t have enough real hands on knowledge to talk from a user perspective on things like SolidWorks or Inventor, the two main competitors for Solid Edge. I do intend to talk about generalities and where they are heading but my real interest in these programs is not the nuts and bolts of how they work for daily users but rather where they are going and the severe problems ahead for users because of this. Problems like kernel change and forced cloud usage, corporate management that won’t be honest with users and other things like this are fair game and require no daily CAD program user abilities to reflect upon. Or the serious lack of direct editing which has been such a boon in my world with Solid Edge.

A question that comes up periodically from some SolidWorks users is just what do we Solid Edge users do with our program of choice? This in conjunction with a past post of mine requesting problem parts that had no takers made me think about why I write this blog and what purpose would I like it to serve besides being a bully pulpit for things I like or dislike.

My sole reason for getting involved with CAD programs was based upon the realization in 2003 that I needed to expand my machining capabilities beyond manually operated equipment. This led to me getting my first CNC mill, a used Haas VF3. At the time Surfcam was offering a free 2d program which was all I needed. What quickly became apparent to me was that you have to feed this CNC mill and you need parts to put in the CAM plans to do so.  Just like the genesis of CAD in the real world was for the ability to communicate to machines to manufacture objects I was now faced with the same quandary.

The path I followed was buy a machine and then you need a CAM program to utilize it. Then I discover that since so much of what I was asked to do was reverse engineering of existing parts or design new I needed a CAD program. So 2D or 3D? It never made any sense to me at this point in time (2004) to learn 2D when it was clear after research that the future of machining was going to be off of 3D shapes. Besides that a 3D part is ever so much more self explanatory and visually concise that I never hesitated to go directly into 3D modeling and bypass 2D. Lets face it, all I ever need in 2D anyway is more easily created from 3D.

And of course history based Parametric modeling has it’s own share of problems which led me to have a look at Synchronous Tech in Solid Edge just before the release of ST1. I bought Solid Edge ST1 and have been here ever since for all my parts creation or imports.

My sole use for design has been to feed the manufacture of parts either in my shop or as parts created and sent to others who have capabilities I don’t for manufacture. And in reality while many designers I fear never see the inside of a manufacturing facility the only real reason for their jobs is that it is expected that somewhere at sometime something will be made from these designs.

SO with this in mind I begin the Solid Edge for Manufacturing series. I am going to take parts I design and produce in my shop and show how  I do so with the emphasis on  parts design for manufacturing. From designing for manufacturing to designs that incorporate assemblies which allow me to cut parts and jigs for those parts from the parent part I intend to demonstrate how this shop does things with Solid Edge. In the near future the upcoming wonderful CAM goodies I can finally talk about when Solid Edge University starts up this June will be in addition to parts creation. Yeah that’s right you heard me CAM goodies on the way.

The frequency of these posts will  depend on when I think I have an interesting or different type of part to talk about so if this is of interest just be on the lookout.

 

By the way, the upcoming SEU2013 this June will be the only event like this in the history of Solid Edge where you can be there when all the pieces of the puzzle are finally put in place. Hasn’t been one like this before and there can’t be one like this later so may I recommend to the curious or the fence sitters debating going that you do so.

http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu

Solid Edge University 2013 BE THERE

Let me take a moment of your time here to just mention a few things. In many ways what I had hoped for with SE has been delayed for a few years or has never been a part of SE to begin with. There are things I can’t talk about so let me just say this. I fully expect SEU2013 to be everything I could hope for and more in every area. This year SE will have a complete foundation to really launch itself over the course of the next few years to be the next CAD king.

I have wanted this before but this time I am fully expecting it to begin. Where SEU Huntsville was exciting because the SE community was re-established and SEU 2012 Nashville saw it double in size this event in Cincinnati will eclipse anything held for SE over it’s entire history. This year SE begins a new chapter as a complete design to manufacturing ecosystem in every way and there will only be one event like this in the history of SE. There will be much bigger events in the future but this one will be the beginning of the real deal for SE and if you can possibly be there I think you will be well rewarded.

When you write you quite often look for zingers or persuasive words to convey your point of view. I don’t have any this time and all I am putting here in this post is what I believe will be the future of SE and in particular the significance of SEU 2013 to this future.  I invite you to be a part of this.

http://www.siemens.com/plm/solidedgeu

Intel Rejects Cloud for Design and Manufacturing Data

I have been writing about the fraudulent nature of the promises of any CAD (And CAM as far as that goes!) on the Cloud company for a couple of years now. My real interest began when Dassault decided they were going to gut the security of every one of their clients by forcing the use of the cloud. Or at least that was the stated intent at the time as they attempted to paint a pretty picture of how things would be for those foolish enough to buy into this. http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2011/01/41questionsaboutthecloud.html

Now I know I have discussed this at length before and I have quoted the above article before. But it bears repeating here that basically none of these questions have been directly answered by any CAD or CAM on the cloud company. I feel they know these are not solvable problems right now so rather than admit this they just won’t talk about it. Those of you in the real world outside of the corporate boardrooms might even go so far as to say deliberate deceptions would be the right term and I think so to. The idea that single threaded applications can’t work better in the cloud where there are hundreds of cores available for your use is swept under the carpet. Instead we hear the cloud is a wonderful thing and no one bothers to qualify what he says. Indeed if they were honest they would say that this CAD cloud thing is applicable to FEA and rendering only and is dependent upon your internet connection quality and has gobs of charges waiting in the back ground. That single thread is still that and what they offer does not fix this. But you can still rent hundreds of cores if you wish. And they will make sure it ends up costing you more in the long run because it is all about the money and not about you.

Every once in a while I see an article I consider quite powerful for the viewpoint I subscribe to regarding the cloud. Today I bring you one from Intel CIO Kim Stevenson. http://www.zdnet.com/intel-cio-kim-stevenson-on-big-data-openstack-women-in-it-7000014221/

I think it bears repeating a bit of it here.
“•Design: “Silicon design will never go out to the cloud. That’s our core IP,” said Stevenson. She added that no cloud service level agreement or chargeback would ever compensate for Intel’s intellectual property being leaked. Instead, product design runs on a high performance computing grid that’s internal.
•Manufacturing: Manufacturing is another area that won’t be put into the cloud. The information is housed in small data centers near the manufacturing site and later aggregated.”

Now I am going to ask publically of Dassault and Autodesk these questions.
If Intel can’t protect it’s data online how will you be able to do so?
If chargebacks won’t cover Intel’s proprietary information losses how can you cover CAD and manufacturing data losses for the customers you have and want to force onto the cloud?

Last but not least is why do the representatives from the top down from Dassault and Autodesk blatantly lie about and or ignore the various egregious aspects of the cloud and expect to get a free pass on this? Now I say they lie deliberately and with intent as I refuse to believe that all these things I find in public domain as news they are unaware of. Deliberate omission of information is after all a method of lying isn’t it? And they do refuse to make whole anyone using the cloud and their software from any damages that result. Read the TOS for Fusion 360 as an example. What is left is for CAD and CAM customers to start considering the integrity with which their CAD software suppliers are treating them. If you are using Dassault or Autodesk products and they force you to the cloud in any way to use their products they quite clearly have contempt for you as a customer and only see you as chattel dollar signs. If you are contemplating using ANY CAD or CAM program that forces your data to the cloud from anyone you are in jeapordy. I mention Dassault and Autodesk because their actions to force users into an insecure paradigm for whatever reason causes them to lead the charge here.

As a fine example of corporate deception and double speaking I present Autodesk’s Fusion 360 TOS. In particular pay attention to sections 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 and it tells you all you need to know of the integrity of Autodesk and how they will stand behind their customers. This is the current version from 3/13/13

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=21310328

For Dassault we have http://www.3ds.com/terms-of-use/ While I did not spend a whole lot of time digging I could find nothing on Mechanical Conceptual and I suppose this is because it is not out there yet for the public. But in any case pay attention to the weasel words in section 9. I am sure you will find them amusing as I did.

Is it any wonder with the integrity of the cloud service offering companies that Intel does not want their intellectual properties or their manufacturing data to reside there? I find these comments from Intel CIO Kim Stevenson to be incredibly revealing and directly damning against Dassault and Autodesk from an unimpeachable source they can’t contradict. The lawyers that Dassault and Autodesk employ agree totally with Kim Stevenson and thus these onerous evasions of responsibility from them to any customer who uses cloud based whatever from these guys.

An interesting commentary I read recently stated that when us old fuddy-duddy users who still believed in things like autonomy and personal control over our affairs, data and destiny were replaced by the young guys who were so electronically connected in every area of their lives and could care less about fuddy-duddy concerns this cloud would work. Work for who dare I ask? Somehow I think that when even these superior mentality uber-connected cutting edge near cyborg wannabes get screwed enough by these cloud companies they to will reject this mess. Nothing like a little real life medicine to cure naivety I always said and thus will die the current equivalent of the Dot Com frauds of the late 90′s.

Look people, in particular those of you with Dassault or Autodesk or considering them or any other CAD CAM company that would force you to the cloud. Can you afford to deal with companies that treat your lifeblood with such disdain? Intel clearly thinks not and so should you in my opinion.

The Absurdity of Linkedin Endorsements

I get occasional emails which state that I have been endorsed for skills from LinkedIn. Now not many show up in my about me because I suppose I don’t reply or reciprocate or approve or something. So I click on the latest endorsement today and it does not show up either but I am asked to approve the list of people that show up for skills. I have to say that many of them I don’t personally know and I don’t have a clue as to what most of them can really can do. Others I do know and could easily endorse them and it would have meaning because I have personal experience with them that would bequeath credibility to the endorsement.

However it has become a game with entirely to many individuals running around collecting endorsements and way to many endorsements being given as a simple courtesy to those who endorsed you even though many times no one knows what the other can truly do. Now as proof of this I offer two situations I am familiar with. I have received endorsements for machining and design and CAD and CAM and manufacturing skills. From people who know me through my blog or by reputation even though only a few of these have actually seen anything I have done and can speak truthfully about skill levels. And that presumes that they have the knowledge in that particular discipline they endorse me for so that the endorsement would be valid.

Then we have this guy. Jon Banquer is proof to me of how frivolous LinkedIn endorsements have become. Go look at his Skills and Expertise list and there are gobs of endorsements from all over the map from people who have never seen his work in any way. They have never seen any evidence the company he claims to own is real. No files no work, just nothing. But yet lots of endorsements and I dare say the majority happened because he endorsed others. Reciprocity is the polite LinkedIn thing to do after all.

So we have the professional equivalent of Facebook’s “Farmville” where social networks are created and driven so that some how some way it can be monetized in the future. With Farmville I remember my wife playing it and then one day in order to have a really cool farm you had to start buying things. I laughed and call me silly if you want but I have prohibited my family from posting things about me and pictures of me there. There is serious data mining going on with Facebook and continuous chicanery with your personal information because they HAVE to make money and your personal data is how they will do it. Everything you put there is for sale. Now LinkedIn is I believe going through the same process and working on developing large user networks. Ones that may have very little basis in truth in some cases but it does connect dots and it does get large groups of people in the system for future monetization. A little more profit potential than Farmville per user because in many cases the individuals at LinkedIn are professionals of some sort and therefore presumably in a place of influence for who buys or uses what. A list for sale to advertisers and sales types would be another way of stating it.

Sad thing is that so much of the stuff in endorsements is bogus that it is of itself revealing of the monetizing principle which has replace true value as people scramble to recreate the wealth the web can represent. Just like the unproven models with the dot com bust that fleeced many of money today I believe we see the replacement of dot com fraud. It is social whatever where getting numbers is king and where getting as an investor true verifiable data is next to impossible. An amusing offshoot of this is click fraud companies who create bogus clicks. Or Google pulling shenanigans with word search and rank to benefit themselves. Or the fabulous wealth of Facebook’s initial public offering without proof it could earn that kind of money.

So we have LinkedIn looking for ways to make their social network grow using less than honest measure to do so. LinkedIn is a valuable resource for finding people in some ways in that they do provide a network of connections that can be very beneficial. Sadly it is becoming less valuable over time as they introduce silly things like endorsements that are not verified in any way shape or form.

So to all of you who have sent me endorsements. Even though I know some of you personally and I know you have skills I just don’t bother participating because of the prevalence of endorsement fraud. Does not mean I don’t appreciate endorsements but I never solicit for them and I won’t reciprocate and now you know why.

It kind of reminds me of the Japan Tsunami videos. First you had the original video and author and then tons of people who would plagiarize them just to get view number counts however they could. Or Grabcad where models show up done by one and subsequently claimed as being done by others who wish to look like CAD gurus and get points or whatever someone thinks they gain by claiming what is not theirs to be theirs. Or Jon Banquer CADCAM’s premier troll who collects them to look authoritative but can’t provide any files or finished work for public or peer review.

Sorry LinkedIn but you have flopped on this one and it is costing you credibility even though it will over time probably help you pay bills.

Solid Works Users, Send Me Your Problem Files

I have mentioned this and no one has taken this seriously yet so I am going to try again. I am looking for MCAD files from Solid Works users that fall into the following categories. Problems creating it in SW, problem with editing or families of parts in SW and last but not least imports that fail in SW. It is my intent to create videos utilizing these files and demonstrating how it can be done with data imported as dumb solids from Solid Works in Solid Edge. I have always felt that there is nothing better than using actual parts to work with over canned demos all slick and polished from Siemens. So my mission, and I hope some of you will be so kind as to oblige me, is to get files from you so I can create some videos.

HEY, worst case scenario is that if it is of interest to you, you can see how someone else using a different program solves the same problems you face. Please leave a reply here and I will get back to you with contact information.

Here is a specific example of what I am talking about. This part was sent to me by a member of the Huntsville Solid Edge User Group. For some reason I can’t fathom he is still strictly an ordered user in ST4. He had a lot of trouble with an imported step file and here I show him how to repair this using Synchronous in ST5. Basically like many history based or ordered users he eventually ended up rebuilding the part after fiddling with it for some time. Now I mention that this was not repairable in ordered in the video clip but I suppose it could be if one fiddled long enough or knew the cool tricks for doing so. My attempts there to get this done in ordered were brief and I went to Synchronous rather quickly where I knew I would not have to fool around. I do all my parts in Synchronous as it is just to quick and reliable for me to consider ordered or traditional history based stuff anymore. And to be honest here I have to sit down and remember just how to inflict the pain of straight ordered modeling upon myself and I spend little time doing so. There apparently are some real benefits to combining the two at times although I have never had a need to do so.

Solid Edge Media and Academic Efforts Need Serious Revamp

You never quite know what to expect when you attend an event and sometimes the purpose of the event is only related to the thing that impresses you the most as you leave for better or worse. Sometime back I attended the Surfcam V6 rollout at the Barber Sports Museum. During one of the Truemill demonstrations the speaker asked how many there used Truemill. There were around 75 attendees and the vast majority were current users. THREE held their hands up and two were from the same company. I was absolutely floored at how such a powerful tool was studiously ignored by such a high percentage of users. Users who in many cases already owned the Truemill add on as a part of their CAM package but for whatever reason elected not to use something that could easily double their productivity and save on consumables to boot. It was almost like a certain level of capabilities and profit were sufficient and there was no desire to improve. The speaker was a bit shocked too and mentioned that they had failed to educate users and prove the benefits to them.

The first speaker at our user group meeting in Huntsville began speaking on Synchronous Tech and asked who all was using it there. Out of 21 actual users in attendance there I was the only one to hold my hand up. Now the really sad thing is that once we began the round table the use of ST was the primary topic of interest with Tips and Tricks a close second.

This leads me to what I wish to discuss and that is the failure of the promotional and Academic outreach side of Solid Edge. I don’t have a clue as to what in the world goes on in the minds of those who are in charge of this but for only one user out of a group of motivated users who chose to spend their own time to attend because they are interested in the software they use to be a user of ST is not acceptable. This is the premier element of Solid Edge and it is the true competitive advantage to both Siemens in gaining market share and SE users who become tremendously more productive by using it. HOW in the world is this not actively pushed by VARS and Siemens is beyond me. Where are the well trained individuals who will call on various customers and arrange to have demos at the place of use to show both management and users of the profound benefits. I do mean profound. I sat there thinking of how crippled user output was because no one had sat down with them and SHOWN them what ST truly means as a liberating tool for CAD creation.

Now one of the reasons for non adoption was ‘my professor teaches us only in Ordered”. I have to admit my jaw dropped on this one and I can’t imagine a teacher who would not teach the best capabilities of the software to his students nor could I believe that Siemens had not checked in to see what the teaching staff was teaching only three miles away from the headquarters. Look, whoever is reading this let me fill you in on something. These students were HUNGRY for ST when they actually saw it being used for the first time. How in the world has this been allowed to happen? As a part of grants or academic site licenses Siemens needs to police what is being done with their products. It appalled me that here were students who were selectively being taught and the best parts were never discussed.

Of course the litany of comments from users about how hard it is to get their companies to switch over and we never have time and all the stuff we as users are familiar with. These are valid reasons. Now why are they valid? Because management has not been sufficiently exposed to the power of Synchronous they labor on in the idea that we already know ordered and we don’t need the headache of change. Kind of like we are happy because we have X% of profit and productivity and as long as we don’t know those metrics could be much better we will stay with what we are comfortable with. I daresay that not one serious effort has been made to have management sit down with Siemens after Siemens does a case study for them to prove the power to improve design time by adopting a new way. From families of parts to imported parts to edits that always happen over the life of a part and Siemens evidently has nothing going on to compel change through proof of efficiency using customer parts to prove this by.

I love to sit down with and Inventor or SolidWorks users and editing their parts in my program faster than they can and I mean by many times faster. There is no more compelling thing than proof and I just can’t grasp how this most powerful and compelling thing is not blasted out by Siemens at every possible opportunity. For my money SE is just flat out the best mid range MCAD program in the world and I spent money out of my own pocket as proof of this.

I am a perfect example of how Siemens should be doing this. Back in 2008 I am shopping for good MCAD and the choices have been narrowed down to Solid Works and Solid Edge. I have attended two demo days with SW at this point in time in Nashville. I had attended nothing for SE because, well because there was nothing then to attend. However, I get a call one day from a guy with a company that used to be the VAR for the Huntsville area. He describes ST1 and called me down there to have a look. This is what I saw. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bk5-1sZ6cY My mind took one look at this principle of direct editing and I could see so many ways this was what I had been looking for without knowing what I was looking for. BUT IT TOOK SOMEONE WHO COMPELLED ME AND USED MY PART TO PROVE HIS POINT TO ME. No canned demo by some sales jock showing the same tired official Siemens polished presentations but a user who took my part and proved the principle of ST to me in a way I could not ignore.

Solid Edge is the best midrange MCAD program in the world. There are things that will be here for ST6 that will eliminate any other software as a contender for utilitarian value king.

You guys need to kick someone in the butt and get them on the ball where the dissemination of the value of Solid Edge is concerned or you can still produce the best MCAD program in the world but still be second or third place in market share. If it were me I would be less patient with mediocre efforts and the apparent corporate satisfaction with the status quo.

Dave Ault signing off shaking his head in disbelief over how this can be allowed to continue. Throw this stupid Loco Motors thing in the dustbin and get real.

Ten Year Plan or No Plan, What Would You Prefer?

OK, I am going to take a stab at being an unpaid junior marketing guy for Solid Edge today. Really it is an easy job because the very nature of the difference between Dassault’s handling of Solid Works and Siemens handling of Solid Edge is huge. Now I am not talking PR here because basically it does not exist at Solid Edge when compared to Solid Works. In this area SW has a plan and SE seemingly does not. I am going to talk about where companies are headed with their products.

Sometimes you read things and you just have to respond. Matt Lombard http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=8244
has come up with two posts this past week that have inspired me. Both of his posts made reference to fear in the heart of Solid Works VARS and today we have this. After this web page was posted it was quickly removed from view.

http://www.3dvision.com/wordpress/2013/01/14/the-sky-is-not-falling/

Now the beauty of the web is once posted never gone and so the page lives on. The Sky Is Not Falling is a heck of a thing for an SW VAR to feel compelled to talk about just before SW2013. I can only imagine the flack his customers are giving him for him to post this topic.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vYjAGQcfZ58J:www.3dvision.com/wordpress/2013/01/14/the-sky-is-not-falling/+http://www.3dvision.com/wordpress/2013/01/14/the-sky-is-not-falling/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

MATT has amended this part of his post referencing The Sky is Not Falling and you may go there and read why at the first link. Obviously this was not written recently but it still was a topic this VAR thought to bring up so for that alone I will leave the reference and comments in. I think there are probably a number of VARS who wonder about a lot of things with Dassault.

So we have a VAR wondering why Solid Edge has an anemic nearly non-existent ad campaign against troubled Dassault and a VAR who does not want to feed the apprehension of nervous SW users. These two are related due to one thing and that is the plans Dassault has for it’s cash paying customers and the VARs stuck in the middle of this mess. Dassault is busy creating weird stuff like Minimoys and software to see how your grocery store shelves might look. How about the abortive attempts at things like N!FUZE and the Cloud?

Here we are two years later and the poor SW user still has no idea of the real plans for SW and indeed he has been in limbo since Jeff Death Ray whipped his blaster out and promised the end is nigh. There are verbal promises and no binding time frame commitments about the future of Parametric based SW. We read about Catia Lite. Lots of press releases with glowing marketspeak gobbledegook no user wants to hear accompanied by how many abortive products since 2010?

I think these are symptoms of a plan no one at Dassault corporate wants to talk about. Either because they are embarrassed at how much failure has accompanied their first stated time lines and product launches or because they are hoping to create a cloud based Catia Lite they can ease their customers into without bleeding to death. All of this is part of the cloud model whereby they hope to, in my opinion, force users into perpetual no permanent seats pay to play chattel for a number of reasons. Primarily more of your money in their pockets in ways that can’t be stopped until you leave them or maybe even as long as you want to use “your” intellectual property. By the way dear reader whose property are your creations if you have to pay someone for the privilege of using what you have created on the cloud hmmm?

So you say, how can you prove that Mr Dassault badmouthing guy! I don’t sit on the board at Dassault but I can read between the lines. SW has no direct editing capabilities to speak of and they are not going to have it on Siemens Parasolid Kernal. You are going to have to have this capability to survive at the top of the MCAD heap. Yes I know the Parasolid Kernal is sold in its entirety but if you think there are not goodies there that make Synchronous Tech work for NX and SE that are not for sale to competitors you are just plain silly. And just like Autodesk I think the desire for chattel is so great at the corporate level that they are willing to risk jeopardizing their companies future in this effort. They truly think the bother of switching will be so onerous that most will never leave. So to date their actions speak louder than their words and the actions are to switch SW to the CGM kernel and users to the cloud eliminating Siemens Kernal and user freedoms in one fell swoop.

SW users think about these things and so do the VARs who do things like pull the above article so as not to feed the fire with SW users. If you don’t want your customer to know what you really intend use the weapon of marketspeak and baffle them with bovine stuff. This is not the sign of a company that has an honest plan they intend talk about with you the CAD user.

It is kind of strange to talk to Karsten Newbury who is head of Solid Edge Velocity products for Siemens. He uses plain language totally bereft of all that marketing jargon and he either says this is what we intend to do or I can’t talk about that with you. But he is willing to share the TEN YEAR plan that Siemens expects it’s companies to operate by. There is no plan to switch kernals or go to the cloud. No gamification or any of that useless social media stuff. Look I am not putting the simple creation of basic CAD or viewing the same on gutless hand held devices in this social media category but rather this whole Experience thing which wants to propel you into an online community of some sort to create CAD. WOW not only CAD but all of your crowd sourcing buddies and Facebook friends will be there too with the internet leaking all your data left and right to hackers!! Who comes up with this junk for a business model anyway?

At this time I find only one basic philosophy and delivery model being planned for Solid Edge. To become the best mid range geometry creation MCAD program out there whose primary objectives ARE to have best in class direct editing, to solve geometry and not have to use the cloud to do it. The next is to have a complete manufacturing ecosphere in place where you never have to step outside of SE and it’s integrated partners to do it all. Of course NX has been there for some time.

This is a contrast that appeals to me. Do I pick software with no clear direction and contradictory statements about the future abounding and being forced to the cloud to boot. Or do I at the age of 59 buy a product whose goal is best in class geometry and where I know exactly what to expect until I retire with a cohesive corporate plan they will clearly lay out for me.

So Mr. marketing guru here is Dave’s whole cad user marketing strategy. Promote the truth in plain language of your direction and your goals for the software. Talk about the capabilities and integration of ancillary programs to make it all work end to end to manufacture by. No BS, no Cloud, permanent seats, no kernel change, and corporate stability. Show how direct editing allows me to edit parts from SW and Inventor easier than the creators in their own products with imported dumb solids.

Now I am going to mention PROE here briefly. I don’t know much of anything about them and neither do CAD users I know personally. We all know they exist and were the King of the hill at one time but basically nothing more. So I figure they are a legacy program living off of those who never bit the bullet to change. Kind of like what I figure the fate of future SW users will be. When I talk about major mid range MCAD companies I am talking about Dassault’s Solid Works, Autodesk’s Inventor and Siemen’s Solid Edge.

At this time even though their marketing department is in limbo only Solid Edge has the corporate planning stability that I need, security now and in the future I have to have by being allowed to work offline and management that actually wants to know and incorporate geometry creation capabilities users want. Whose plan do you want to buy into, yours or theirs?

I chose to buy into the company that buys into what I need for mine for now and the future. NOW MR Marketing Guy, that was not so hard after all was it?

So, Why Isnt Solid Edge Marketed Effectively?

Why Solid Edge remains so poorly marketed is a mystery to me. I can tell you this was a topic amongst users and VAR’s at SEU2012 and since then in private conversations I have had with these two groups. A common comment was why didn’t the dedication and planning evinced for SEU2012 bleed over into promoting Solid Edge to the MCAD software world in general?

Today I am reading over at Matt’s blog http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=8222#comment-3224672
some interesting comments upon Dassault and one reflects directly upon this lack of sales effort by Siemens or Solid Edge or just whoever is in charge of publicity. In part I quote “Our customers are calling with strange questions. It’s clear that the competition is taking advantage of the situation. If I were them, I’d be far more aggressive. Picking up another product to sell is not out of the question. DS has approached some of us with a new contract which looks like a bad business proposition for me in my position of uncertainty. I would not be surprised to see some resellers knuckle under and become essentially puppet organizations for DS. As a large value added reseller in the US, I can’t imagine that other channel organization owners are not thinking the same things that are going through my mind.”

So why is it that even competitors are asking why it is so quiet? We users ask this to with no answer and ponder the whole disconnect from reality. Here we believe in the software and the PR department does not and what is wrong with that picture? If it were me I would be finding out just who this is and chasing him and his customers down. This one disgruntled guy could be worth hundreds of seats and be a perfect referral to other VARS who are justifiably concerned for their future with Dassault. Instead here he sits evidently in a vacuum safe from the Siemens/SE PR department.

I am getting to the point where I believe these marketing whiz bangs with degrees need to return to reality and find out what appeals to users and make a plan. Then carry it out and then stay with it because once started it has to have longevity and frequency to be effective. Dassault has a bunch of 3DEXPERIENCE (never forget the all caps that is important) wonks who talk above the heads of their users and potential customers. Autodesk has guys that say dumb stuff like “
“Autodesk approaches strategy in a two-part process: Strategic Intent (“where we want to go”) and Strategic Realization (“how we will execute against the intent”). We are focused on The Autodesk Experience — How do all of our products and services work together in the cloud? As part of this, we spent A Year of Learning Dangerously where we learned a great deal about broad disruptive changes impacting the industries we serve:”.

No user has a clue what this guy meant but he is convinced it was worthwhile. So these guys have fruit baskets and bowls of nuts for PR directors in many cases but at least they are getting name recognition out there. For some reason the Solid Edge/Siemens PR department thinks I guess that sales can work through osmosis or telepathy or something. Write the software and They Will Come I guess. Anything but what has proven to work else where in their target market.

Look guys, it is a New Year and time to step up to the plate and CRUSH Dassault like you ought to know you can. You do know this and believe this don’t you? Act like it then. Dassault is doing everything they can to self destruct and you guys do nothing meaningful with this golden opportunity. Even your competition wonders why Solid Edge is not interested enough to at least communicate with and offer deals to all the Solid Works user refugees looking for life rafts. I don’t get it and I don’t know one person who does but then I am not in charge of PR. Considering what I see with Dassault and Autodesk and Solid Edge I have to really wonder how these PR guys are picked.

I can guess that being a simple minded user who would consider utility and cost savings promotions and stability of the software’s future direction as paramount to a cohesive ad campaign I am most certainly not qualified to be there.

Look, can I say this, well I am not asking actually. This conquest of Dassault is a time limited offer. If you do not get busy someone else will and it is your own future you compromise with this stubborn refusal to get busy with PR in a meaningful way.

Time to go back to work and stop pondering the byzantine logic of PR specialists.

Solid Edge Social Community

I want to announce the formation of the Solid Edge Social Community. Here is the link to it. http://www.soliddna.com/SEcommunity
This has been started by Luc Poulin of SolidDNA who is linked to here at the sidebar.

I think it bears a bit of commentary as to who Luc is and why you should go there if you have an interest in Solid Edge. I first met Luc at PLM World in Nashville 2009 where he was one of 37 Solid Edge attendees. Well before there was a re-establishment of the new SE community he had an interest and was there on his own dime. He has been an active part of the revival of the Solid Edge community not so much with his web sites as with his prolific technical support and how to’s which show up on a regular basis at the Siemens BBS forums and pretty much where ever SE users congregate. Behind the scenes he has been of material help to people like myself, Matt Lombard and many others on how to do things or solve problems.

While I am involved in the use of SE and helping to create a community for users I have never considered myself an expert user of Solid Edge. My business does not require me to be and my plate is full enough that I learn what I need. Luc on the other hand IS an expert and is well regarded by people who go as far back as Solid Edge V1.

He has toyed with the idea of creating a community forum for some time now that would be open to the public that would be geared towards anyone who was interested. I remember discussing stuff like this with him 3.5 years ago. I think highly enough of Luc to have recommended him to Siemens in the past to be a liaison for the French speaking community of SE users in Canada (eh!).

Luc has however remained independent for whatever reason and this is his forum created because he likes Solid Edge and thinks you should too. Luc also has a back ground in actual manufacturing software such as CAM so he knows how all of these tools of ours are supposed to inter-relate to allow us to be productive in our work. I think that outside of Eng-Tips and the official Siemens BBS this site of Luc’s deserves to become within the next year one of the top forums for SE. (As a side note here Eng-Tips while valuable has some odd notions of what is proper and you can’t post things about user groups or conferences or whatever else they don’t like at that time. Eng-Tips is a commercial site and is moderated with their own special interests in mind first and foremost.) I want to encourage everyone who will to go there and register and even more importantly to contribute in some way. Active volunteers and community participants at this time are far and few between with Solid Edge. Really this is true for any CAD software as when you think of the number of subscribers compared to the number of people who participate online very few are there and I think the vast majority who show up are lurkers.

But the establishment of a network of communication which Luc’s forum will help to do has far reaching potential consequences for those who will help.

Networking between users is hard to do when the VARS and software authoring companies keep the lists of subscribers in a vault you never have access to. They generally are not going to help you find other users in your area. Networking between individuals is how you find work, get work, get hired, improve your professional career and most importantly in some ways find a local source of talent you can go to with your laptop and file when you need to be bailed out. The side benefit of enjoying the company of your peers is also well worthwhile in my opinion.

So go there and help kick start this thing with Luc. Stay there and help make it happen. Now I am going to talk to the SE users who primarily participate only on the BBS about something I think is important. For some reason SE users are some of the most insular people I have met in the software world. Pretty independent minded and self reliant they have for the most part only communicated behind the closed doors of the BBS forums and rarely venture into the world at large. Now I am going to say that some of these guys were a big help to me when I started and still are but only on the BBS and rarely do you see these uber users in the public eye or forums. I think it is time for this to change and for these talented individuals to help get this community going. I think Luc’s site is a fine place to start and it is time to do more than show up at something once a year and hide in a closed forum for the rest of it. Did I just say that? Well, really, did I mis-state the truth? I know how many of you guys are excited about the revival of the yearly conferences but I am telling you this is only part of the puzzle to be put together. The university will last four days this year. The forums however last all year and should be an integral part of serious SE users who see value in the growth of SE and the community to their future.