Those of us who track numbers in the CAD world have a hard time grasping the number that Dassault Systemes triumphantly issues -- that there are 2.2 million Solidworks users, blowing away all competitors.
Now, the company is quick to admit that only about 1/3 are commercial users, ones who pay for a license and use it in a production environment -- so about 730,000. The other 2/3 are educational users, who are being taught the software.
But here comes a slide that makes me go, "Eh?" I took the picture of this slide during a presentation by Dassault at the recent Dell Computer launch event in Round Rock TX:
The numbers in red are ones that excite marketing people. 2.2 Million! Big! Numbers!
(How big is this number? Well, Autodesk claims only 1.7 million users on subscription -- for ALL of its 100+ software products. I think the 2.5 million students learning Solidworks is the total number over all years.)
The numbers in blue, however, show a different story, one of low engagement. Let's take a look:
- The 89,000 certified users represent just 4% of total users
- The 15,000 users in user groups represent just over half a percent of total users (0.6%).
- Not shown, but even smaller is the number who show up at Solidworks World, about 0.3% of the total
But then there are a million (1,166,546 according to the site itself) actively using 3DConentCentral.com, and this number grates by seeming to be proportionately too large. It turns out you don't have to be a Solidworks user to download files.
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