We're Online! (Who Cares About the Rest of the World?)

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

Autodesk has come out strong in favor of online CAD and cloud technology. Many new apps announced here at Autodesk Universtiy 2013 are browser-based, requiring online acces. In the press Q&A session, both CEO Carl Bass and CTO Jeff Kowalski rolled over any opposition to online apps and cloud technology.

In response to Autodesk's adamant stance on online sharing and collaboration, a press member from Argentina explained, "We don't like to share." 

Another from India added, "Only 6% of us are online."

Suddenly with those six words, the world that we in the USA take for granted -- 24/7 broadband access, smart phone always in hand, iPads at the airport, one step from having our toasters text us when the toast is ready -- collapsed to its true size.

That's nearly a billion people right there in India who can't see our modern picture. Add to this most of Africa, the rest of Asia, and Latin America. You have the majority of humans who are a long way off from having the online tools and toys we take for granted. 

Do tech execs dismiss them as irrelevant? I feel ashamed.

Aren't those countries the growth markets we are always going on about? Don't we pat themselves on the back for sending them baby incubators made from car parts, or low emission high-tech cooking stoves so everyone in the mud hut doesn't die of respiratory failure? We drop coins in the beggar's cup, but we think no more of him when we clink our wine glasses together.

Consider the plight of Rwanda. Landlocked with uncooperative neighbors and denied access to Internet submarine cables (which is how most of the world gets access), it has to rely on expensive satellite signals, which are split in so many parts that the few available connections are spotty. A technical school only a hour's drive from the country's capital has been trying to get Internet connection for years.

The privileged few that set the tech policy really ought to get out more.

 [Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.]

 

 

Comments

[JonBanquer]

It's long past time for the CADCAM press to start looking into the real reasons why Autodesk wants to purchase Delcam. Unfortunately that's going to be really hard to do since most of the CADCAM press can't figure out what's so wrong/what's missing from Autodesk HSMWorks.

It seems to me that most of the CADCAM press doesn't care to learn the basics in regards to what kinds of software tools are needed by CADCAM programmers because I NEVER see most of the CADCAM press write about these tools.

The majority of machining job shops don't machine just one part or one Setup at a time and they need strong CADCAM tools to control how they prepare and machining multiple Setups/multiple parts. Those would be the kinds of tools that Autodesk/HSMWorks utterly lacks. For starters, you have to be able to support more the one machining coordinate system per Setup or what Autodesk HSMWorks calls a Job Folder. Autodesk/HSMWorks allows just one machining coordinate system per Job Folder and Autodesk/HSMWorks also doesn't give a CADCAM programer powerful control over tool sorting. That's just the tip of the iceberg on the needed tools Autodesk HSMWorks is missing. Another big problem is that Autodesk HSMWorks is a Process based CAM program rather than a Feature based CAM program. That means for many part programming jobs Autodesk HSMWorks is not efficient to use because you have to do everything manually which is very tedious, time consuming and error prone.

Delcam products like Featurcam, PowerMill and PowerSHAPE (CAD)blow the doors off using Autodesk HSMWorks, Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Fusion 360 in many real world machining job shops. It will take years for Autodesk HSMWorks to add the needed tools, if ever. Delcam products already have almost all of the needed tools.

The question is what does Autodesk intend to do with Delcam's outstanding CADCAM products? It makes no sense to combine a product like Autodesk HSMWorks with Delcam Featurecam because Delcam Featurecam already does everything better than Autodesk HSMWorks does. When I say everything, I truly mean everything! For prismatic parts Delcam Featurecam is the fastest program I've ever used to get to quality G code. There is a reason Autodesk HSMXpress is given away for free... their 2 and 2 1/2 axis CAM tools are nothing special and they don't even remotely compare to the tools or the workflow that Delcam's Featurcam has.

Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn

[Kevindesmet]

Cloud seriously curbs piracy, that's it.

[Ralph Grabowski]

I don't think there is anything like a "CADCAM press."

I write about CAD, not CAM. I have a vague understanding of how CAM works and about who the players are. I am sufficiently uninformed to the point that I recognize the name Delcam and know that they have some CAM software, and that's about it.

So, I cannot pontificate on Autodesk acquisition of them or HSM.

[JonBanquer]

Delcam is a company that has some truly outstanding technology... both CAD and CAM. Delcam PowerSHAPE is an amazing CAD product that does things that SolidWorks and Inventor don't do very well.

Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn