WorldCAD Access

Dassault disses the domino vendor, complains about invisibility

Every three months, PTC tells financial analysts about its Domino Theory: the company plants some software in a corner at a large corporation, who finds it invaluable, who adopts it company-wide, and finally who forces it on its suppliers for compatibility. As dominos fall, PTC posits, revenues rise. During last week's conference call, Dassault Systemes ceo Bernard Charles laughed at PTC's Domino Theory: Some of you track who track the competitive landscape might remember the famous domino effect claimed by one of the competitor. They were saying that the domino effect was going to be negative for Dassault Systemes. We... Read more →

Autodesk throws rocks at PTC, Simens PLM, think 3, Dassault

In the 30 years that desktop CAD has been enriching our lives, competitors have been loathe to name each other, with few execptions. In particular, press releases announcing competitive wins have typically been against AnonCAD, that CAD system that seems to have close to 99% marketshare, judging from how often it appears in press releases. I don't know if this was an unspoken gentleman's agreement or simple reticence. (A "competitive win" is when one vendor replaces the CAD system of a competitor. The "win" is usually less impressive than the resulting press release lets on, for it can take years... Read more →

Thibault takes over from Bernard

Once in a while, the transcripts from financial conference calls become amusing. Here is one such incident from yesterday, between the CEO and CFO of Dassault Systemes: CEO Bernard Charlès: Am I doing what you should be doing, Thibault, here? CFO Thibault de Tersant: Yes, you are. Mr Charlès: Okay. I apologize. I was so excited. Mr de Tersant: I’ll take over. Mr Charlès: So because when I saw the cash situation, I said, this cannot be my topic. So you can rewind the tape if you want and do whatever you want to do. I’m sorry for that. Mr... Read more →

CTV blows olympic streaming in Canada

I figured this would be the year I could watch the olympic opening ceremony on my big screen, streamed over the Internet -- instead of my 22" tv set. And CTV proved me right... but then flubbed it. This week, the private Canadian broadcaster released an Android app for watching all of the olympics on Android devices. There were two catches: the Android has to be in Canada (OK by me), and it has to receive the video streaming over wireless (odd one). Video does not work on Androids I eagerly downloaded the app (with trembling fingers, you might say)... Read more →

Dassault flush with cash, increased sales in Q2

Big news out of Dassault this morning, as the company, which dubs itself "3DS," increased Q2 revenues up 17% over a year ago. Or as they put it, "organic double-digit revenue." Earlier they had already passed the magic $2-billion-a-year milestone, and now this year they are reaching for €2 billion ($2.452 billion). This number will be compared next month when Autodesk announces its quarterly results, as the two top CAD vendors battle each other for the #1 position of gross revenues. Siemens PLM Software could well be a contender, too, but prefers to keep its numbers a secret from the... Read more →

Which CAD vendor will be first on the slablet?

Tablets with discardable keyboards are nothing new. Several years ago, for instance, I owned an ill-fated HP convertible notebook computer whose keyboard swung out of the way, turning it into a touch-sensitive tablet running Windows. "Ill-fated," because TX1000-series suffered from a badly designed nVidia graphics chip that ruined many of them, a crisis over which HP never got around to responding. What's new are slablets, tablets with discardable keyboards running a smartphone operating systems. ASUS and Lenovo got them running Android; Microsoft is showing its own design with Windows 8 Mobile; just Apple ain't on the scene. With some CAD... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: readers take over the editorials

Readers this week take over the writing job in upFront.eZine #743, and so we have have for your reading pleasure two guest editorials: 1. Revit vs Online Rendering Guest editorial by Bart Blankendaal 2. Why I Quit the CAD Business Guest editorial by Steve Hannath 3. Out of the Inbox and our other regular columns You can read all about the business of CAD at http://www.upfrontezine.com/2012/upf-743.htm Read more →

fotos of the sunday: prairie village

It's an annual pilgrimage, driving one day straight-through to my wife's hometown, to visit her aging parents and their dwindling number of local friends. The town is a village, and here are photos from the "downtown." The village of 1,000 boasts a surprisingly large number of Ukrainian churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. My daughter, daughter-in-law, and wife read the names of soldiers from the village, killed in the First, Second, and Korean wars. When social media fails. Even irony finds its way to prairie villages. Garden gnomes from the Pre-Ironic Era. Dead bugs on the bumper of a Dodge minivan.... Read more →

Google blesses my phone with two Android updates in 17 hours

One of the pains of owning an Android device is the uncertainty over updates. I certainly experienced this with my first, Samsung's Galaxy S Vibrant. It is currently stuck at Android v2.2, much to the irritation of my daughter who now uses it. No Instagram, is her primary irritant. For my second phone, I decided to go safe, and get the Google-branded Nexus S, the Google model current at the time. The carrier is one of Canada's budget brands, Fido. And this time, I won. It came with Android 2.3. In May, I received an over-the-air upgrade to 4.0.3, some... Read more →

EU's two simple reasons for allowing software resales

Reading over the court decision to allow private resale of software licenses, I see that their reasoning was simple, consisting of two points: In European law, software falls under the category of Book. Once a customer buys a book, the publisher loses control over the fate of the book -- the "rights are exhausted by first sale," as the court put it. European law supersedes anything a corporate lawyer might choose to include in license terms. The law suit was brought by Oracle against a used software seller in Europe, and the plan backfired when Oracle lost. You can read... Read more →

world's largest 3D printer to print entire Airbus aircraft in, oh, around "2050"

Parmy Olson of Forbes tells us that Airbus cabin engineer Bastian Schaefer spent two years now on envisioning an aircraft-hanger-size 3D printer for printing entire aircraft by that year useful for predictions, 2050. Benefits include 65% lighter components, transparent aluminum skin (so that no one can watch movies), powered by body heat captured by seats, bionic parts made from materials that don't exist yet, and, well, read the rest at http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/07/11/airbus-explores-a-future-where-planes-are-built-with-giant-3d-printers/ Read more →

Lenovo very nearly #1

Ever since IBM sold its PC business -- consisting of desktop and notebook computers -- to Lenovo of China, I've always had a vague sense of Lenovo-who? Especially because their ThinkPad notebook computers look identical to when IBM made them. But now it's time to to put the sense of puzzlement behind me, as stats this week show Lenovo being one quarter away from becoming the largest shipper of PCs globally, putting lie to Jobsian claim we live in a Post-PC world. One company shipping in three months 13 million PCs isn't pocket change. (But neither are 20 million iPads,... Read more →

Siemens PLM to Dassault: we can rule the air, too

Siemens PLM is issuing a press release a day from the Farnborough Air Show this week. Big deal, because it's Dassault's Catia software that's traditionally used by Boeing and AirBus to design aircraft. But just as Siemens is getting bigger in automotive design, they're now wanting more of aircraft design using their NX CAD software, along with Teamcenter for project management, and Fibersim for composite material design. JSC United Aircraft Corp signed a long-term agreement, extending and expanding a previous agreement (so, not "new," as the press release implies). But jet planes are so 1950. Siemens PLM is going beyond... Read more →

Do not tell anyone about this press release

PR people need to read what they send out. Can you image a press release going out to inform the world, yet contains the following harsh warning to keep it quiet: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. Yup. Pretty much every day,... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: how workstations are different from desktop computers

In upFront.eZine #742, we have have for your reading pleasure... 1. How Workstations Differ from Desktop Computers - CPUs and GPUs - Expansion - Quality - Workstation Body Styles 2. Readers react even more on cloud-vs.-desktop rendering 3. Out of the Inbox, and the other regular columns. You can read all about the business of CAD at http://www.upfrontezine.com/2012/upf-742.htm Read more →

WorldCAD Access thanks its ten thousand daily readers

It was pretty exciting last Friday when our counters reached a total of 10,121 daily readers. This number is made up of 8,205 who read WorldCAD Access through our RSS feed + 1,916 who read our blog directly. Thank you for stopping by and reading! - Ralph Grabowski Editor Read more →

And just like that, Autodesk lost its battle against resold software in EU

Autodesk's legal department must've spent a sleepless night as word came out late yesterday evening from Europe that used software can be sold privately. As my European CAD friend Dietmar Rudolph explained it to me: You will have seen comments on the EU ruling on used software which in fact says that a software company's rights to distribution of a license ends with the first sale. Once sold (no matter which way), the licensee is allowed to resell the software even if the EULA says differently. Now, I have copies of AutoCAD and other software going back to the 1980s.... Read more →

Why 4.0 is a brilliant defense against Apple's thermonuclear war on Android

I first experienced Android 4.0 on my smartphone, and then a month later on a new tablet. What I found fascinating is that 4.0 operates differently on them. One OS that smoothly takes advantage of two different screen sizes -- 4" vertical and 8" horizontal -- and at different resolutions. The built-in screen flexibility really made its impression on me when I tested out the Android TV Box. Its primary output is an HDMI connector, which means it is meant for modern tv screens, as well as compatible monitors. In the Display section of its Settings app, I found the... Read more →

Gal Raz on why Dassault had to kill Solidworks

Gal Raz is a blogger in Israel who has written insightfully on why Dassault Systemes had to kill of Solidworks. For 15 years he was a sales rep for Solidworks Solutions and a CSWP, and is now a sales manager for a local Autodesk VAR. Here, I've condensed his reasons, which he published in May; read the full explanation in two parts at his site displaystatesen.blogspot.com: Part I: SolidWorks's Dilemma - How to kill a successful product? Part II: No shortage of challenges to SolidWorks for the coming year Solidworks's Dilemma: How to Kill a Successful Product 1. As a... Read more →

Alternatives to Autodesk's cloud rendering service

Amongst the controversy created by upFront.eZine's benchmarking of Autodesk's cloud rendering service, RevUp Render president Ry Bruscoe wrote to tell me that he has an alternative. His competitive service seems more comprehensive than the one provided by Autodesk. For instance, it has an EasyView window that shows you the progress of the rendering as it is performed by nVidia GPUs on Amazon's computer farm. (Video.) The video shows a model taking six hours to render in Revit, but just a few seconds on Amazon. (Using a RevUp browser window, the model viewpoint is changed, and the scene is re-rendered in... Read more →

I'm returning the $90 Android tv box

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered an Android TV box. It has the guts of an Android tablet, but in an Apple TV-like small square plastic box, bristling with ports, like fullsize HDMI, ethernet, and fullsize SD card. $90 through eBay from China. I hoped to use it as a media center in our entertainment room, since it could play back movies from YouTube and other Internet sites, from flash drives attached to its USB ports, as well as access files over the local area network from our computers. It arrived last week and pretty much worked as I... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: Readers react to desktop vs. cloud rendering benchmark

In upFront.eZine #741, we have have for your reading pleasure... 1. Benchmarking Rendering: Readers React Positively 2. Readers React Negatively 3. Out of the Inbox, and the other regular columns. You can read all about the business of CAD at http://www.upfrontezine.com/2012/upf-741.htm Read more →

The two fundamental flaws in Google's Nexus 7 tablet

As I read the confirmation of earlier rumours of the Google-branded 7" Android tablet, I first wondered if I had jumped the gun by buying a cheap 8" Android tablet from China only a month earlier. But as I read the details, I realized that Google's design suffers from two significant problems: pricing and ports. The Pricing Problem Nexus 7 offers customers a pricing anomaly in that the 8GB model is $200, but the 16GB is $250. You pay $50 for a mere 8GB of added flash RAM. These days, $7 is the retail price for an 8GB microSD card... Read more →