Solid Edge 17 Available Today

UGS ships the English version of Solid Edge Version 17 today; nine other languages ship over the next six weeks. Susan Cinadr of UGS notes that "Since its March 8, 2005 announcement, Solid Edge V17 has received positive reviews from customers and industry analysts alike."

Hmmm... Would UGS include negative reviews in their press releases? No, for the obvious reason that quotes are selected. The press release goes on to list happy quotes from a market analyst at Daratech, a customer in Germany, and an editor at 'Desktop Engineering' magazine.

Would customers using beta software make negative comments? No, because beta copies contain bugs and debug code, and so it is "understood" that beta software -- from any company -- is not to be criticized; the problems might be fixed by the time the software ships. If there are complaints, they tend to be of the "this is a bug that need to be repaired" nature.

Would analysts and editors make negative comments? Not initially, for the same reason as above. After the software ships, then analysts and editors decide whether to expose the negatives. Until then, software companies tend to get a free ride.

What do you think of editor Anthony Lockwood's description of drafters who still use 2D? The press release quotes him saying, "[Solid Edge's] 'Evolve to 3D' approach blends 2D and 3D, gently leading holdouts to the future...".

Features

After letters of protest from competitors and users of VX, CadKey, CoCreate, Autodesk, and Solid Works appeared in upFront.eZine, UGS eliminated the exclusivity claim for Direct Editing, writing in the press release:

Solid Edge Version 17 offers direct editing of models without the need to edit the history tree.

Other features:

- massive assembly support
- updates to the four-step 2D-3D program
- UGS XpresReview software included
- Apprentice Mode and Feature Error Assistant
- CATIA V4 Translator, batch Inventor migration tool, and ME10 translator

Counting up Solid Edge and its other software, UGS has nearly 4 million licensed users.

Comments

[Bob Mileti]

What's up your butt about Solid Edge. It's seems you can't help but be critical of the program and UGS. I've never read such comments about AutoCad when they blow their horn. We're all used to certain amount of "hype". in fact just go here to read some now!

http://www.upfrontezine.com/ralphg.htm

Stop being so obvious... it makes your site very unprofesional.

[Jon Banquer]

I have no idea where Bob Mileti is coming from ? upFront.eZine did what it should have done... take an in depth look at the UGS false claim of being the first to offer direct editing of non-native imported solid geometry and showed where it was not true. Many sources were given a chance to state their case and many did. All agreed that it wasn't true.

This does not mean that upFront.eZine is bashing UGS / Solid Edge. upFront.eZine just showed where the claim wasn't true and it has nothing to do with Solid Edge being a good or bad product.

I wrote in and said it wasn't true and there are many aspects of Solid Edge I like. It's obvious to me that UGS is working very hard (after a letting Solid Edge fall behind) and doing things with Solid Edge that are innovative and very good for the market because UGS will force Inventor, SolidWorks, etc. to be better products.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

[ralphg]

Gosh, Bob Mileti, where are you when I make negative comments about Autodesk?

Would you be writing, "It's seems you can't help but be critical of the program and Autodesk"? For example, I broke the story of Autodesk breaking its NDA with editors and beta testers by allowing a select group of bloggers and employees release information about AutoCAD 2006 nearly two weeks early. In protest, I had zero coverage of AutoCAD 2006 in upFront.eZine. I didn't read comments from you, like, "What's up your butt about AutoCAD?"

(BTW, my butt is none of your business. It's between me and my proctologist.)

[ralphg]

Let's go through this again.

In its press release from Mar 8, UGS wrote:

"Solid Edge Version 17 takes a leap forward in the mainstream CAD market by becoming the only mid-market CAD software to offer direct editing of models without the need to edit the history tree."

I asked UGS what the qualifier "only mid-market CAD software" meant. They meant the other products mentioned later in the press release: "...competitive systems such as Pro/ENGINEER, Autodesk Inventor or SolidWorks."

Since then, both Autodesk and SolidWorks have protested UGS' claim in upFront.eZine, as have CAD companies not considered by UGS to be its peers: VX, Kubota USA, and CoCreate. (CADalyst magazine also reported on the competitors' complaints.)

Since then, UGS has eliminated the claim of exclusivity in their press releases. The most recent one from Apr 25 reads:

"A new Direct Editing capability allows users to change Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, or any other imported 3D file directly in Solid Edge without the need to import features or constraints."