Minivan vs FreightlinerDifferent Purposes, Different Prices

Khari Johnson of Business 2.0 magazine writes about 3-D software gets real. The story is not new for those of us in the CAD industry: design something in 3D, build it, and it works better and takes less time to produce.

But one point of comparison didn't quite work out:

Companies like Dassault Systems were first to the stage, offering industrial-strength programs that were expensive (a single copy of Dassault's CATIA cost $19,000 in 1998) and hard to use.

Not only does Autodesk's $5,300 Inventor software cost a fraction of earlier programs, but it's packed with convenient features and is considerably easier to use.

A better comparison would have been with Dassault's direct competitor to Inventor, SolidWorks, which is similar in price, feature set, and usability. In any case, some versions of CATIA still cost in the neighborhood of $20,000 a copy today in 2007, as do competitors UGS NX and PTC Pro/E.

Inventor can't really be compared with CATIA, because CATIA is used to design entire aircraft, which Inventor cannot do -- just as a small shop wouldn't buy CATIA to design bike frames. Business 2.0 compared something like Honda minivan with a Freightliner tractor-tailor unit: different purposes, different prices.

Comments

Different tools indeed. The truth is (as ever) more complicated. The prices are much more competitive, the tool comparisons are more complex. All the while, the developing nature of software competition and hardware improvements improve capability and ease of use (read: practicality) to a greater audience still. To the consumer go the spoils so it is believed.

You're right, Inventor is definitely the minivan.

Ps. The article reads like an autodesk ad.

[Rachael Taggart]

All kudos needs to go to Autodesk's MCAD PR group for this one. It plays perfectly into their message.

It's a shame, though, that this journalist didn't seem to do enough research - where is Pro/E and SolidWorks mentioned - Both of whom were launched well prior to Autodesk's [Inventor] 3D MCAD offering? If you want my opinion (well, good question but I'll give it anyway) Pro/E was the ground-breaker in this market, SolidWorks brought in the much-needed competition, and Autodesk caught on in a 'me-too' activity much later on.

But I also don't want to discourage Busines 2.0 from noticing 3D CAD...it gets little enough attention as it is! I just hope next time they consult a few people first rather than simply taking the PR angle on board.

rach

[Dennis Jeffrey]

Actually, Autodesk's first Solid modeling program was introduced in 1989, Called AutoSolid. The second modeler (designer) was introduced in 1993, with Mechanical Desktop ( still around today) introduced in 1994 a few months before Solidworks. Get the facts straight.....

[R.Paul Waddington.]

1989, Autosolid?
Just for fun have a look at what we were using as a solids modeller in 1985. An ICON driven gem of a package that ran on DOS and a 286 based cpu. Imported and exported AutoCAD files with no problems, ran very reliably, and as a result was much better than Autodesk's first effort which we used prior to 1989 and had heaps of problems and was never used for commercial purposes by us (probably by very few).
www.ozemail.com.au/~cadwest1/gallery/Digitizer_Puck.html