X-CAD Track-O-Meter

Alibre formally acknowledges they are the CAD software company behind X-CAD.

Earlier Posts

X-CAD wants 100,000 people to sign up by August 1 before it will give away a copy of their 3D parametric mechanical CAD software. (It's not clear if that's at the start or the end of 1 August.)

Using the Science of Statistics, WorldCAD Access will make predictions (every so often) to see if the goal is attainable.
June 1 (evening) - 5,000
June 7 (morning) - 16,000

Rate of sign-ups = approx 1,700/day
Days until 1 August: 56 days
Estimated sign-ups by 1 August: 95,200. On the XCAD Track-O-Meter, this rates a Darn!

BTW, some guesses from readers as to the company behnd X-CAD:
* RaceCAD
* Alibre
* Think3
* Somebody entirely new

Update: 20 Jun

It's not looking good. Sign-ups have plunged to around 1,250 a day. (Would that my upFront.eZine e-newsletter receive 1,250 new subscribers a day!) Using the Science of Statistics and the OpenOffice spreadsheet, I predict a miserable 60,000 sign-ups by 1 August.

On the XCAD Track-O-Meter, that rates a Groan!

Update: 21 Jun

The company behind X-cad has begun to advertise its Web site. (You might see its ad on the right, under Google Ads.) This has caused the sign-up rate to more than double to over 3,000 per day. The company needs at least 1,500 a day for the remaining 41 days to meet its goal.

On the XCAD Track-O-Meter, that rates a Lookin'-up!

Comments

[Jim Manrique]

Es buena este pagina como su software

[JC]

A few people and I tried to register over the last few days but none of us received a confirmation email. We're starting to think it may be a SPAM email harvestor. Has anyone else received confirmations? Maybe this ambiguity is slowing the word-of-mouth snowball.

[Randall Newton]

1. I got a reply email when I signed up -- I recommend people try again if they didn't get a confirmation the first time. It is not a spam harvester.
2. As I wrote in a commentary for CADwire.net, I know the company behind X-CAD, but I'm playing along by not revealing the name.
3. Ralph, your statistical analysis does not take into account the Internet principal sometimes known as The Law of Accelerating Returnes. It is most likely that the daily average number of sign-ups at X-CAD.com will increase as the days go by.
4. I'm "typing" this by poking an on-screen keyboard on my WiFi-enabled HP iPAQ, while lying in bed. Ain't technology grand?

[LH]

Perhaps the "law" of Decelerating Returns might be more appropriate; the rate of registrations seems to be failing. My math as of June 13th, 11pm indicates something less than 75K by August 1.

[Evan Yares]

RaceCAD?

You gotta be kidding me.

[BNN]

I just received my confirmation mail, checked the message ID and saw this:

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

So the cat is definitely out of the bag. :-)

[Nano]

I got the confirmation email in a few seconds .. could be your spam blocker

[Tonnes Grodeland]

I vill like to try yours free program
to no i have youse bentely microstation

[Richard Williams]

I don't care what kind of CAD software it is. I like them all but cannot afford any at this late time in my life. But if we get it, I will teach it along with other CAD, AEC, CAE and MCAD things I get from other vendors. My idea is to plant the seeds for the future of engineering, design and architecture.

[Milan Jaros]

I have received confirmation email

[JC]

I finally got the confirmation email today, about two weeks late. At least I think it's a confirmation. It seemed to be a generic email update, not a "thanks for registering" email. I had heard elsewhere that the company may have been revealed in the email header. Maybe that is what took so long --they were changing email-- since the email I received said X-CAD instead of any particular CAD developer.

[Gary]

Relax, JC. I got a confirmation email.

[KrazyKyngeKorny]

I got my confirmation e-mail.

I have used several 2D CAD's. Never tried 3D.

KrazyKyngeKorny
raykornele (at) myway.com

[Ken]

As of now, 46980 have signed up in 27 days. Assuming a constant rate of 1740 per day (current AVG rate), this means a total of 106140 by august 1st. WoooHooo. As of June 27th, my confirmation email did not include albire.com, but the descriptions of the products are strikingly similar on the two websites. The one press release says this company wants the price point to be $995, which is what Albire 8.2 sells for, hmmmm. Draw your own conclusions, but I agree with Albire.
Ken

[gr]

The registration is still working.
My colleagues have had responses in a few minutes. If you check the no spam box then so far there is no spam and we all know its a marketing ploy by an existing cad vendor (and its not too difficult to work out who!).
But we've got to register to find out what x-cad will actually be, or at least how much of the functionality of the normal product from "you know who" it will have!

[Don Battles]

If you check the full message thread, you will see that it does come from Alibre.com.

That is great I can use an awesome c.a.d. program, especially if it's free.

[gr]

My colleagues recently registered for x-cad and now there is no mention of Alibre.com in the header. The delay in some registrations may be because they were finding a more anonymous route for the emails...
I think that some posts on the alibre user forum that mentioned xcad in the subject may have been removed, but I might be wrong on that. There is still some discussion of it under other headings in the forum.

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

[ltt]

Hmm, i found this page for x-cad but I thought to myself what if this was just an easy way for a spammer to get 100,000+ email address's for free...

I hope i'm wrong...

The fact that the site points to no one directly and the who-is info is not tracable to any legit org. leaves me wondering.

I'd sign-up with a hotmail account or some other free service just to be safe.

[Ben Bradley]

Okay, ftc.gov is not really my url, but I thought it appropriate here, as there's suspicion of funny business going on.

The x-cad site is being spammed at a moderate level (20 or so posts) to cad-related Usenet newsgroups, as shown here:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=x-cad.net&hl=en

Of course I can't tell if this poster has any connection with x-cad. The headers from one post looks 'normal' and indicates a comcast.com subscriber.

OTOH, I also see
"Download Free 3D CAD
Parametric Solid Modeling. Hurry! 100,000 must register by August 1.
www.x-cad.net"
under the "Ads by Goooooogle" on this page, so it appears they are at least paying for legit advertising, but that still has no bearing on whether they're responsible for the Usenet posts.

Will x-cad be the answer to all our 3D cad needs? We'll find out next month, same x-time, same x-channel...

[Jason]

I received my confirmation e-mail within seconds of registering ... everything seems to be working fine!

[ICEM_Surf]

While searching the internet for anything related to the X-CAD software I did a search on www.thomasnet.com and came across this company website:

www.amtmolds.com/equipment.cfm

Under the heading CAD\CAM Software they list X-CAD.

Hhhmmmmmm...

[kev (who'd have thought!)]

I have 4 email addresses, does this mean I can register 4 times?
It seems to have cookied me as I cant seem to get back to the sign up page. I'll clean out my cookies tomoorow and have another crack.
btw, I dont know if I've got a confirmation mail yet, as I enertrd an address I cant clear from work.

[ek]

What a joke. Of course they won't get 100,000 signatures. But I'm sure they'll be VERY close, just so they can harvest a few thousand extra email addresses at the last minute. Not that very many of them will be good addresses.

jes i did

[Anon]

I wonder if it will be better than PRO/Desktop. That was good.

[Phil]

Hopes are good: 83671

88,220 with 12 days to go...
A "remarkable" homing in on 100,000!
I wonder what actually controls the counter?
A failure to meet the 100,000 would not refelect well in publicity terms for whoever is x-cad.
"X-cad couldn't find enough people to give their software away to..."
"Over 100,000 people have registered..." sounds much better!

[Mike]

I got a confirmation email and this site has to much coverage to not be legit. As of July 18 at 10:52 AM the count is at 88724. About 100 have signed up in the last 15 min.

[Mister]

I think this is a scam. Did you see the link on the page:

Free "AutoCAD LT 2006"
Get This Popular Software Free. Free w/ free shipping. Sign up now.

I clicked on this to get free AutoCAD, and you know what-- it only gives you the free software if you sign up for 1 accounts in Group 1 (blockbuster online, netflix etc...), 2 accounts in group 2 (credit cards etc..) and 3 in group 3 (more on-line marketing) and then it gives you about 50 other options to register for. Basically you only get it if you sign up for a bunch of useless junk that you never wanted.

Hope xcad does not do the same thing, there will be 100,000 pissed off people

[ralphg]

'Mister' is referring to the Google ads that appear on the x-cad.net page.

[Graham]

I got a conformation e-mail, sure hope its legit, Alibre is very much like SolidWorks, just without some of the frills. Looking forward to 100,000.

[nobody]

98,195 now...

[Gerald_d]

I got a "Goal Acheived" email today as some of you may have also and read this little statement.....

"All free versions of Alibre Design Xpress require an Internet connection and will display a banner of Google ads through a built-in web page. No third-party adware is installed on your system. If your Internet connection is lost we have taken steps to ensure that you can save your work. The Internet connection requirement can be turned off for a small fee."

CAD with an internet connection (dial-up?) and advertisements? I don't think that I am even going to bother to download it when it becomes available! Alibre has put itself firmly into the "gimmick" category as far as I am concerned. Up till yesterday I was willing to give them a shot, but I think they have turned a lot of potential serious customers against them by associating themselves with the banner-ads guys.

[sbl]

I hope we may be able to install in multiple system with internet connection