With last week's SE4 launch event, Solid Edge came out from under the NX shadow

By Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

The enhancements are coming fast and furious at the launch of Solid Edge ST4 Launch event. I cannot keep up. (Get all that I missed through the What’s New in Solid Edge ST4 PDF by Siemens PLM.)

I’m catching a few highlights, especially ones that are applauded by the attendees. Like:

• Range Offset Value
• No more picking on empty space
• Prevention of assembly relationship loops
• Shadows that appear correctly, even on photo backgrounds (done with an invisible plane)

The cynical, and those with the competition, might say some enhancements are fixes for problems Solid Edge itself had created. Yeah, that happens. But many are bona fide, and are welcome improvements. If I was a Solid Edge customer, I’d be doing cartwheels.

As Dan Staples, director of Solid Edge development (aka "Papa Edge"), lists even more improvements, I realize am witnessing a genuine and concerted effort to improve the product – an effort contrary to the growing belief in the industry that design software is as good as it can be, that all CAD software can basically do everything, that all the features needed have already been added, that CAD software has have achieved parity, and that it is more or less a commodity.

Thank you, Solid Edge, for not giving up; for recognizing that, yes, even with one of the most robust and easy to use MCAD software applications in existence, there is still room for improvement; that users’ lives can still be made easier; and there are still customers to be won.

At 250, the attendance at the ST4 Launch is small compared to the big annual CAD conferences; Autodesk and SolidWorks measure attendance at their annual events by the thousands. Nevertheless, this “launch” is significant in other ways.

A gathering of Solid Edge users is a break from the mother ship. For several years, Siemens PLM Systems had attempted to lump Solid Edge users with NX users under the "PLM World" umbrella. There was only one problem: Solid Edge users stayed away in droves. The few who did attend PLM World regretted it, telling tales of snooty NX users, of being unable to find others like themselves (often cited as the single most valuable benefit of user conferences), and of a conference program that was almost completely filled with NX classes. “We were the red-headed step child,” said one Solid Edge user.

Insiders I spoke with credit Karsten Newberry, senior vp of Solid Edge for Siemens PLM, as the main reason why Solid Edge came out from the shadows. Only a few months ago, Mr Newberry gave the job of creating the ST4 launch to John Fox, formerly from PTC. With a small but hardworking staff, Mr Fox engineered the entire show, complete with keynotes, a dual track of classes, meals, social events, and even 3rd party vendors. (My favorite: a cappuccino machine that dispensed coffee -- for free!)

Though the event was small in scale, Solid Edge now has a scalable template for future events – something that "Edgers" (as Solid Edge users are often referred) will welcome.

[Reprinted with permission from CAD Insider.]

Comments

[Gilbert]

Way to go, Solid Edge!

[Jon Banquer]

Siemens forums are still locked down for NX and Solid Edge. John Fox, head of Solid Edge marketing in the US, recently started yet another closed, locked down forum for Solid Edge on LinkedIn.

Basic and intermediate training for CAD is now mostly self-taught with quality video and training manuals providing the needed learning experience. By way of example I purchased the official SolidWorks training manuals that SolidWorks uses for expensive reseller training on eBay like many other SolidWorks users have done.

The future isn't educational programs for basic and intermediate learning, it's self-study and open community forums like the one HSMWorks just started for their cutting edge CAM program that runs inside of SolidWorks.

In my opinion the company that has done the most for Solid Edge users is SolidMastermind who has done an outstanding job with making affordable video training available for Solid Edge. I think it's humorous that none of the Solid Edge fanboi's are asking why SolidMastermind wasn't invited to present at the Solid Edge tiny get together (compared to SolidWorks World)a few weeks ago. The reason they don't ask is that this is just another example of how stupid and how small minded and cheap Siemens is when it comes to proper Solid Edge marketing. In addition they hide behind an excuse that they can't do direct comparisons to SolidWorks because of the SolidWork EULA. Funny how Autodesk had no problem hiring Ray Kurland of Technicom to do a direct comparison of Autodesk Inventor to SolidWorks.

There is no change in Solid Edge marketing. It's just more of the usual smoke and mirrors from the person at the top who has always been in control and Solid Edge fanboi's are only too happy to line up and eat the crumbs the big man gives them. Sad, pathetic even.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA