Happy Competition!

One thing in the CAD world we should be grateful for is competition. Just imagine if CAD software were like Windows, Internet Explorer, or Office -- software without significant competition that gets upgraded every 4-5 years, and then offering a set of badly designed features.

Instead, we get remarkable 3D modeling software that ranges in price from free to five figures. I mean, the real-time 3D graphics alone is an amazing advance -- amazing for those of us were used to waiting hours just for hidden-line removal to complete.

This thought of gratefulness was the result of two items I read this morning:

-- Matt Lombard has been blasting away at the problems in SolidWorks 2008 on his Matt Writes blog. In Everybody loves a train wreck, he concludes:

Instead, if there is a particular function you would like added to SolidWorks, send an enhancement request to Autodesk, you have more chance of seeing it [implemented in SW].

-- Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower by Daniel Eran Dilger at Roughly Drafted Magazine.

There you have the two extremes: fierce competition between MCAD vendors, contrasted with the inaction of a convicted monopolist. Mr Lombard’s conclusion is not so much a dig at SolidWork as a word of praise for competition, free markets, capitalism, choice. Mr Dilger’s article is no so much “Come, let us adore Apple!” (which his writings tend to be), but a warning to those who would pursue monopolism.

Not that MCAD vendors wouldn’t love to create monopolies among themselves. Monopoly is not so much about being the only general store in town, as removing choice. Microsoft was very good at removing choice.

Comments

[Closov]

OTOH, if everybody started using the same CAD program on the same OS tomorrow - wouldn't the roads, trains, toasters and homes get built faster, better, greener and cheaper?

Glossy New "Features" Vs A Better World for Mankind

hmmmm - tough choice!

[matt]

Ralph,

I agree that competition is a good thing, and that competition should inspire innovation. But in the world of SW vs Autodesk, competition only inspires immitation. SW immitates AD as much as the other way around, which I think is something SW users are sick of. SW should be taking cues from users instead of Inventor, or SolidEdge or Spaceclaim for that matter. When the CAD companies start copying one another, we wind up with an indistinguishable mess. SW seems to take joy in copying useless functionality from Inventor, and then only making it work half way.