The CAD Insider

Survey: Why Do You Buy CAD Software?

As promised, a survey to explore why users buy a particular CAD software has been created. Please give your input at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=891102592287. You can see the results as the survey progresses by clicking on the "done" link at the bottome of the survey.

When I initially suggested factors that influence a buying decision in a previous post, I neglected to mention cost. A revealing oversight, perhaps? We shall see.

Adobe Serious About CAD Market

Maybe we should be flattered. It's rare that really big software companies pay attention to CAD users. But Adobe is seriously making inroads and gaining mindshare. Consider that without even trying, Adobe PDF software became a standard for transmitting drawings. Since then, Adobe has turned up the volume with 3D features and collaboration products.

Connect the Disconnected

Adobe presented their version 8 products recently, which will be available in November through next spring. Used for the presentation was Adobe's Acrobat Connect, their collaboration product that used to be called Macromedia Breeze. News to me -- I never knew it existed. Though I was traveling in India at the time when the presentation was originating in USA, Connect performed flawlessly. I was able to see -- without noticeable lags --what was happening on the USA screens. Audio was provided through phone (I hate to think of what 75 minutes long distance to India costs but luckily Adobe was picking up that bill). Overall impression: Connect seems like a definite alternative to WebEx. Connect licenses for $395 per year, or $39 per month (and Adobe will offer a free trial of the software from its availability in November through the remainder of the calendar year). By comparison, WebEx offers a product called "meetmenow" at an introductory price for a 1 year commitment according to their website, with no mention of an upfront cost.  But Adobe says Connect uses software already found on most computers (Flash Player and Acrobat), whereas WebEx users have to download software.

Acrobat 8

Some highlights of the presentation:

• Acrobat installs a button on AutoCAD's toolbars. Adobe appears to be a benevolent benefactor of CAD users, in contrast to Autodesk, which maintains a warlike stance against Adobe.  (Autodesk has a competitive DWF format)
• Flatten layers option in Acrobat condenses layers in an AutoCAD drawing. It would be nice to be able to preview the layers visually as one is selecting them. Perhaps in a future release.
• Adobe claims great gains in speed in PDF creation, citing a drawing that once took 100 seconds could now be done in essentially real time.
• Batch mode for handling many conversions at once.
• Convert by simply dragging an AutoCAD or LT drawing file into the Acrobat interface. You don't need to have AutoCAD or LT on your computer.
• You can trade off quality for speed during conversions-- and vice versa.
• Combine multiple AutoCAD drawings and layouts into a single PDF
• Added support for digital signatures, including the ability for Acrobat 8 users to enable them in the free Adobe Reader.
• For 3D users, Adobe suggest a process change: "Do not use your CAD system to make your 3D models into 2D. Use Acrobat." However, a real 2D drawing has dimensions, annotations and formats. I'm not sure you'd want to -- or could --do all that in Acrobat. But the file size advantage is enormous. A CATIA V5 model was purported to reduce from 35MB to 150KB, a factor of over 200X. (That was probably on the low quality setting)
• Some measurement and dimensioning is supported in Acrobat 8. The dimensions appear rudimentary by CAD standards but are probably sufficient for "quick and dirty." Since dimensions do not pick up dimension styles already in use in the original drawing, they can look quite different than dimensions already visible. (another wish list item, if anyone is listening)

Again, expect the new stuff to be available in November, except for Acrobat 3D Version 8 which will not be ready until Spring. (Adobe says they need more time to integrate technology from TTF, a company recently acquired)

Related Stories:

• Adobe Introduces Acrobat 8
• Adobe Introduces Connect Products for Collaboration
• Adobe Acrobat 8 to Push Collaboration, Add Flash
• Adobe Adds 2nd 3D Format to Acrobat
• Adobe Previews New Products to Come - Acrobat 8 Professional and Acrobat Connect to be shipped in November, while Acrobat 3D Version 8 is scheduled for release next year, Sara Ferris, Cadalyst, September 18, 2006

Editorial Ethics: Are We Rearranging Deck Chairs on The Titanic

The editorial ethics debate -- on these pages and elsewhere -- has provoked much soul searching, heated opinion, agreement and denial. But has it only been a futile effort to understand and correct an outdated and fading system?

The debate centers on the Editor -- purported keeper of all that is good and true -- being seduced/pressured by evil commercial forces, embodied in the position of the publisher. See Ralph Grabowski's "D**m Magazine S**k-ups" for an explanation of these roles.

But if I may boil it down to its essential conclusion, the editor/publisher system as discussed is broken. If the editor has a publisher for a boss, all the high minded ideals face the root of all evil. And the root of all evil will win.

Traditional publishing firms still cling to the church/state parallel as an example of how commercial interests don't bias editorial integrity. This parallel has always bothered me. First of all, who is the church and who is state? And if editors were "state," in order for the parallel to work, the pope would have a head of state as a boss.

But how many magazines in our industry are still being published using the traditional editor/publisher model? Most of them have gone away, leaving only two (Cadalyst and Desktop Engineering). As we look at the material that is being published now, most of it is online and quite a bit of that is not published in the traditional sense. Look at all the blogs -- individuals are self publishing. If they have any ads at all, they are Google ads, and Google (whose internal slogan is "don't be evil") exerts no influence at all over content.

The freedom to publish freely is changing everything and, in the process, may just sink the old model.

That's not to say the new emerging models don't have issues. For example, online ad-supported publishing companies often have a single person who acts as both editor and publisher. Now conflict of interest can reside in a single body.

Perhaps it is time to leave the old model behind and examine issues in the new media?

OK, Why Do You Buy CAD Software?

Judging from the cards and letters, I may be in the minority when I suggest a CAD Olympics could be an important factor when buying CAD software.

So what is important? I'd like to survey TenLinks' readers to find out what drives them to buy CAD software. Here are some reasons I thought of (in no particular order).

1. CAD program is a market leader?
   • Or, how could so many users be wrong?
2. Longevity of company
3. Company reputation
   • Trust in brand of current CAD software
4. What others in similar industry are using?
5. Checklist of features, robustness
6. Benchmark
   •     Having vendor demonstrate software with company’s specific design tasks
7. Reviews in magazines or online
8. Evaluation during trial period
9. CAD Shoot Outs
   • (Yes, I'm going to list it anyway)
10. Published case histories
    • Success stories, such as "XYZ Inc. Cuts Design Time at Acme"
11. Ability to read/write existing company design data
12. Advertising, print and online

Did I miss anything? Do let me know.

Alibre Flies (Happily) Under the Radar

You would think Alibre and SolidWorks were competitors, as both are MCAD vendors. But Alibre's CEO Greg Milliken explains that Alibre is actually doing SolidWorks a big favor -- by taking care of customers that SolidWorks cannot-- or will not--service.

I met Milliken and VP of Sales, Paul Grayson, yesterday in San Francisco. "SolidWorks average sale is around $7,000." Alibre's average sale is only $1,000, so according to Alibre, they can sell to many wannabe solid modelers that cannot afford SolidWorks.

[SolidWorks is available as a basic package for $3995 but its Office Premium Bundle can fetch $7995]

"I've heard customers that try to get SolidWorks but can't get a SolidWorks VAR to visit them for a month," says Milliken.

What about Inventor?

Milliken has read the claims by Autodesk that Inventor is #1, but has difficulty believing them. "We just don't come up against them," he says.

"Hey, it's okay to be seen as a low end vendor," says Milliken, referring to the money that is to be made on what the big vendors were leaving behind. "For the last couple of years, our year-over-year revenue growth has averaged 50%, last year it was 90%," says Paul Grayson

After such growth -- as well as one and a half years of being profitable -- Alibre aims to jump out of the shadows and boost its marketing and advertising. The company has been content so far with a low visibility strategy, relying on Google ads, word of mouth advertising and upgrades from its popular Alibre Xpress, a free but limited modeler that has already been downloaded 250,000 times.

I asked if the users of the free Alibre Xpress were a drain on resources. Even free software required tech support, for example. But Milliken assures me that even users of Xpress are warmly received at Alibre and helped as much as possible -- after all it is an upsell opportunity. Alibre routs those calls through the sales staff.

A smallish company (50 employees overall, almost all of them in the Dallas, TX area), Alibre has survived its venture capital funded beginnings back in 1998 and its initial attempt to create CAD as an ASP application. "CAD users are conservative, they want to buy the software and own it forever -- even though with upgrades and maintenance, they end up paying about as much as we charged for the ASP model," says Milliken. Alibre is now a desktop application only, though Milliken hastens to add that Alibre does provide the online, collaborative peer-to-peer architecture for real-time data sharing.

SolidWorks' Unfinished Business

Despite all the wishes of SolidWorks, the SolidWorks/Inventor Shoot Out -- which it lost -- is not going away. Such is the way of the Internet. Material published on the Web is only a Google click away, and as many CAD buyers have not doubt found.

If you have not been following this blog, a brief history is in order. An AutoCAD user group organized a contest between SolidWorks and Inventor back in 2002. SolidWorks made some demands in how the contest was run but was refused. SolidWorks declined to send an operator. Autodesk sent a demo jock. Both the audience and the judge ruled the ensuing contest in favor of Inventor. Many of us in the CAD community were surprised, as SolidWorks was widely accepted as the more robust of the two products.

While Autodesk gloated, SolidWorks basically thought the whole affair unfair. As is pointed out by Evan Yares in this blog, SolidWorks had declined to participate in the Archimedes contest as well, which would have pitted it against several of its competitors.

It may have been a strategic decision of SolidWorks not to compete. After all, it has been a leader in many ways in the MCAD field. Perhaps it had thought it had everything to lose and nothing to gain.

But times, they are changing. Autodesk now routinely brags that it is the #1 selling MCAD softtware. And with every new release, it seems to be catching up to SolidWorks' capabilities.

Time for a rematch?