The SolidWorks Way

WALTHAM, MA (SolidWork Media Event), Sep 6, 2012 - Unlike previous SolidWorks media events, we are given less dazzle. Hot topics of “cloud” and “green” are only mentioned when asked about, and then downplayed. Wait...the only cloud was mentioned but it was about balloon clouds used in 2D drawings.

Bertrand Sicot, CEO, addresses the press and bloggers at SolidWorks annual press event.

We were treated to a host of enhancements in the core product SolidWorks (though mercifully not all 350 of them) as well as 2 big new addons for electrical and mold flow. Most conspicuous in its absence was competitor bashing, which seems to have become the norm at press events at other vendors.

As CEO Sicot tells us, “It’s not the “SolidWorks Way.”

SolidWorks seems to have the high road all to itself, while traffic snarls below. With a position of market leadership in MCAD, it is (for now) content to allow others to criticize, to stir up trouble, cast fear and doubt. Others brag of SolidWorks users who defect to their brand, I hear from one prominent SolidWorkers that hundreds are doing the opposite, may be too numerous to mention. “We’re just not going to play that game,” he says.

But CEO Sicot let us know at the press event that “half of all sales are from new accounts.” We just shouldn’t expect a press release every time that happens.

Has it always been that way with SolidWorks? It may be in the company’s DNA, if I may use the common marketing parlance. The way it quietly supports noble causes, from Rwanda* to the PMC (raising funds for cancer research) to helping inner city youth to baby incubators made out of old auto parts for the 3rd world. Withour any “Hey, look at me, how good I am.” Would a company like that trash the competition?  No, I don’t think so.

SolidWorks is in there somewhere. The Dassault Systemes campus in Waltham, MA.

In fact, with this event, the SolidWorks way may signal a return to basics, to customer needs and its core expertise. Whereas in previous years, where the company got way ahead of its own users, essentially telling them what was important (clouds), what was good for them (going green), we are hearing about better tools that users are actually asking for.

SolidWorks 2013 introduces new ways to make conic sections, which previously had to be constructed with B-splines. In another example, users of a previous release (SolidWorks 2012) can -–for the first time -- read models from the current release. Dozens of improvemements enfold, including "delighters," which they hope will generate applause at the upcoming SolidWorks World in Orlando. Many changes have to do with 2D drawings. Does it have the glamor of green? The loftiness of clouds? No. But necessary? I think so.

Is this a deliberate move to solidify (pun intended) its user base? Back to basics, a re-focus? A quiet and dignified answer to its harshest and loudest critics?

We’ve all spent a year since the last SolidWorks press event listening to contrary voices. The kernel change will blow your models out of the water. Direct modeling is the answer and history-based is dead. The parade of defecting users. The end is near, their voices rising, in chorus.

SolidWorks stands firm. They respond quietly, with dignity, with numbers. Quarter after quarter of rising sales, almost 2 million users… Not exactly an epitath. But a company that is strong, still a leader, therefore the envy of others. 

David Stott, CFO, shows the climb to 2 million users. Granted, 1.4 million are in schools, but still, which CAD company wouldn't want these numbers?

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*SolidWorks provides financial support to Innovate3D, Roopinder's other company.

Comments

[Evan Yares]

Regarding Bill's comment:

Reminds me of an incident, many years ago, when Autodesk came out with a new product. A "competitor" who was well known to Autodesk bought a copy of the software, and installed it on his computer. It wouldn't run.

This competitor, being an assembly language programmer, did a dump of the product, to see what might be happening. He found out that his name was encoded into the program. A bit of reverse engineering, and he found that the program included code to look for his name on the computer, and if it found it, would not run.

Is the story apocryphal? I doubt it. I heard the story first hand, with enough supporting context to make me believe it. And other companies, for example Microsoft, have been known to do similar things.

I'm the bald guy in the light green shirt in the photo above.

[Bill Fane]

Re. "SolidWorks seems to have the high road all to itself." In spite of reference to its DNA, it wasn't always so.

One SolidWorks release many years ago checked for Autodesk installations. If it detected Mechanical Desktop (this was pre-Inventor) then a toolbar of commands to convert Mechanical Desktop models to SolidWorks plunked itself down right in the middle of the AutoCAD drawing area whenever you started a new file or opened an existing one. Autodesk procedures say that if you close a toolbar then it stays closed. Not this one. It would reappear every time you opened or started a file. I found and deleted the toolbar definition file, so SolidWorks promptly notified me that my AutoCAD installation had become "corrupted" and had "repaired" it. Next, I found the AutoCAD DLL module that SolidWorks had patched and replaced it with a clean one. Same story: "corrupted" and "repaired." It finally took a simultaneous 3-way repair of the menu file, the AutoCAD DLL, and a system registry entry to make the SolidWorks toolbar go away.
With the next release, they did much the same thing. They had introduced DWGeditor, their 2D AutoCAD-compatible program. Every time you opened or started a file in AutoCAD, a big purple splash screen proclaiming "Powered by SolidWorks" appeared in the middle of the AutoCAD drawing screen. Same problem: "corrupted" and "repaired." Same cure.

This hardly sounds like "the high road" to me, although I do freely admit that they don't seem to have done anything like this since then.

I also get suspicious of the "number of users" touted by virtually any program. Do they mean actual, current, commercial users, or do they mean the number of serial numbers issued since Day 1?

...and a bit of background info. I'm in the photo at the top of Roopinder's article, on the RH side, second from the podium. Roopinder volunteered to pick me up at the airport, and graciously waited an extra hour and a half because I missed my connecting flight in Toronto.

[Matt]

I think it is hard to make the case that Silence = Dignity. Especially when the silence starts right after lobbing a grenade into the customer's idea of "the future". Communication would be more dignified than silence.