SolidWorks and Dassault--The Ray Charles Show, Pt 3

The stage is set for SolidWorks to be more of a willing partner to Dassault Systemes, rather than the free spirit it may have been. This new attitude will manifest itself in products crossing previously sacrosanct channel boundaries. Enterprise products developed by SolidWorks could find their way into the Dassault Systemes channel, I suppose, but it seems more likely that "volume" products acquired or developed by DS would find their way into the SolidWorks channel.

In fact, 3DVIA Composer, the rebranded Seemage 3D publishing program acquired by DS last year, is already being featured on the SolidWorks site. However, some adjustments in pricing may be in order as the $12,000 tag is deemed pricy by the users I've talked to. To them, software that adds secondary capability to their primary application should be a fraction of what SolidWorks costs  -- not a multiple of it.

So the story that started a few months ago with SolidWorks changing its name to DS SolidWorks and continues CEOs Ray and Charles doing a duet in Barcelona's press event, is still to unfold. I expect more togetherness on display when SolidWorks hosts its annual user meeting in February. That gives SolidWorks time to tune its message, as the SolidWorks resellers in Orlando are not going to be as well behaved as the press in Barcelona.