Solid Edge 'Adopt a School' Aims High

HUNTSVILLE, AL (Solid Edge ST4 Launch) - Karsten Newbery, in charge of leading Solid Edge to a place of prominence among MCAD market, knows it’s going to take more than a solid product (pun intended). One impediment to wide acceptance has been the lack of Solid Edge trained candidates. Companies are buying market leading design software sometimes just because they can fill the seats with someone already trained in using it. “There’s just not enough Solid Edge on resumes,” says Karsten. “How do we make the next generation Edgers?”

Solid Edge is launching an ‘Adopt a School’ program that will, if successful, graduate ready-to-hire Solid Edge trained candidates (see press release).

Solid Edge is encouraging its VARS to target local schools and volunteer their services, supplying students with knowledge of technology – with a heaping helping of Solid Edge experience on the side.

Call it seeding the fields or a Trojan horse; it is a page from the Apple playbook. For generations, Apple computers have been a mainstay in elementary schools and higher. Ostensibly to teach computing, generations of kids grew up knowing and growing with Apple products.

Of course, it took an unwavering commitment to an ideal from Apple, plus millions of dollars and an almost infinite patience to wait it out for results. Does Siemens PLM have this sort of resources? The stamina?

Karsten has hired CAD veteran Mike Brown, who, with a team of two others, hope to start a grass roots revolution in CAD education.

Mike's background extends as far back as Computervision, which was acquired by PTC. One CV product was turned into Pro/DESKTOP and was to be the answer to SolidWorks. It wasn’t. Mike is no stranger to the academia, having done bizdev for Edutech,which launched a couple of education initives in the Mideast. If this doesn’t work, it will not be due to Mike’s lack of sales skills. He refers to his home town of Manchester, England, as the best place on Earth, which is sufficient to convince me that he would not be afraid to sell refrigerators to Eskimos.

Mike tells us that Solid Edge is quite popular in the UK where there are more Solid Edge vacancies than for SolidWorks. But Mike is realistic enough to know that breaking into education, at least in the US, will require considerable effort.

“Schools get a lot of software given to them,” he says. “Carpet bombing the schools with CD is not going to help.”

Solid Edge's “call to action” relies on Solid Edge VARs as being welcomed on campus as ambassadors of technology. How hard could this be? Mike reckons teachers, who for the most part have trouble keeping up with technology, will open their doors, as it relieves theri burden.

Mike is upbeat about its potential acceptance. He’s that sort of guy. Ideas and experience are not his problem. Karsten says he has often had to throttle the flow.

Enthusiasm and salesmanship notwithstanding, let us see what sort of commitment Siemens PLM is ready to deliver to ensure the success of Solid Edge in academia.

 

Comments

[Jon Banquer]

"Thanks Tim, considering the circumstances I think you know why you were asked. You certainly earned the rating."

Make an mistake.

Get nailed on your mistake.

Refuse to admit your mistake.

Never apologize for being wrong.

Spread more innuendo in a lame attempt to cover your obvious mistake.

Roopinder, feel free to delete my post. I'll understand. For sure it's as polite as I can be to someone like this.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

[John Solipsism]

Thanks Tim, considering the circumstances I think you know why you were asked. You certainly earned the rating.

[Tim Markoski]

It's real simple.

The product I developed, "Machinist ToolBox", was reviewed by ZDNet some years ago and received 5 stars.
I recently sold out to BobCAD-CAM, Inc.
http://www.machinist-toolbox.com/

I still have the text of the review if you actually want it.
I'd have to dig through old hard drives to find the email with the actual review from ZDNet.

I still do development work but it's generally limited to automation of CAD, CAM and PLM systems via their respective APIs.
http://twitter.com/#!/MTBSoftware

I'm getting ready to root my Nook Color with Android 3.0 as I write this.

[John Solipsism]

Ahhh well, Tijondrew, are you going to post a link to the article that won the ZDNet Editors Choice award? It looks cute but Inquiring minds want to know just how it got there.

[Tim Markoski]

I post using my own name for a reason.
My opinions are my own.
There are a lot of things I don't particularly agree with Jon Banquer about.
In this case, I believe he happens to be correct.

I think SolidEdge is a great product.
However, let's call a spade a spade.
SolidEdge doesn't have any market share because it has been mismanaged as a product.

While I think a commitment to education is a good thing and is it's own reward, let's not kid ourselves about how this is going to effect the bottom line.

SolidEdge is not doing anything markedly different from what it has done in the past.
Why would anyone believe they would change now?

I've been in this business long enough to see the writing on the wall.
Without major changes in the business plan, SolidEdge will do just enough to make it attractive for another company to acquire.

In the short term, I would suggest that Karsten Newbury make it a priority for his sales and development teams to do three things.

1) Read Carl Henry's book, The MODERN Sales System.
http://tinyurl.com/3gtqnp7

2) Make it mandatory that ALL team members get out of the cubicle hive and visit REAL engineering and manufacturing companies to see what they actually need and want.

3) Create Focus groups to give you their completely honest impressions of the product.
This is absolutely necessary to keep a delusional arrogance from getting a foothold and propagated throughout the company.

[Jon Banquer]

"They got where they are by building a better mousetrap and inviting people to use it"

SpaceClaim combined this with an open forum, an understanding of how to use social media (twitter, blogs, etc.)and by creating tons of tutorials and videos showing how to make best use of their already easy to use product. All of these tutorials and videos can be downloaded by anyone whether they own SpaceClaim or not.

I also think it really helps that SpaceClaim is designed and lead by veterans of the parametric CAD industry who helped to create Pro/E and SolidWorks and who now want to take it to the next level of ease of use and away from history based modeling which they see as the past.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

[Jifos]

That is "Tijondrew"! You can spot the fakes because they agree with Jon and mention SpaceClaim.

[John Solipsism]

Ah, Jondrew, you forgot the link to the actual article on ZDnet.

[Tim Markoski]

Jon Banquer is correct.

The educational market is no longer useful in that it will NOT drive sales.

All one has to do is look at Apple and see that, despite heavy presence in the elementary and secondary education systems, the market share has been unaffected by their "commitment to education."

The CAD & CAM markets are mature and saturated.

There will be consolidation and elimination before there is real innovation.

It may make sense as part of a long-term strategy that attempts to create or leverage a new market paradigm.
However, as a sales tool, it's a waste of time.

It is unique and innovative products that will rule the day.
All one has to do is look at where SpaceClaim is today to see that they did NOT get their by a "commitment to education." They got where they are by building a better mousetrap and inviting people to use it.

It is safe to say that if Solid Edge was going to have any real success, it would have happened many years ago.

That said, never underestimate the ability of a market leader to screw things up so badly that they essentially force their customers to leave.

I give you PTC's Creo.

After using Co-Create and Creo Elements/Direct it's obvious that PTC has made the biggest mistake in the history of the industry with their re-branding.

PTC's version of Direct Modeling is a cruel joke.

SolidEdge may get some increased traction in the market but I wouldn't bet on it. There simply isn't any real reason for a company to make the switch.

Companies like SpaceClaim gave companies a real reason to either have an additional tool or make the switch.
I simply don't see Solid Edge ever doing anything as innovative as SpaceClaim.

Sometimes commitments to educational markets are made simply because it's the right thing to do.

[Jon Banquer]

"I think ST was not marketed properly in students community and lack of trained faculties to teach SE ST!"

Agree. It will take many years of proper marketing and it still won't be enough. Huge mistakes were made and continue to be made. These mistakes aren't going to disappear unless SolidWorks hands the market to Siemens and I don't think they are going to do that.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA