Dassault describes its plans for Solidworks and cloud

XDesign leads the way

 

In his response to a financial analyst during yesterday's Q2 conference all, Dassault Systems ceo Bernard Charlès controversially claimed to be the only vendor doing CAD on mobile devices, browsers, and any operating system. Perhaps I mistook his claim, or perhaps someone can point out that companies like OnShape, Graebert, and Autodesk are already shipping mobile, browser-based, and OS-independent CAD software.

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Laurent Daure (analyst with Kepler Cheuvreux): I remember that in previous quarters, you were relatively cautious regarding [Solidworks and] the cloud and how the relationship evolved. From what I got this morning, it seems that you are becoming much more aggressive about that. Could elaborate a bit?

Bernard Charlès (ceo Dasaault Systems): We announced early this year that we have very clear plans to exploit to cloud for Solidworks. Now basically there are three main directions.

The collaborative platform using the cloud for Solidworks users. This is new a type, a new category, like industrial design, which is cloud-based applications complementing beautifully the Solidworks desktop environment. We will continue to expand those things, because they provides very easy access to sophisticated applications for users who want to simplicity of using the product.

And the deserve [sic] direction (what we announced early this year, also at Solidworks World, also public information) a new category called Solidworks XDesign, where basically it’s about doing designs in browsers with zero download, online any time. We are starting beta this summer; in fact, we started already with a small group of users. This is really to provide full mobility on any-time form factors, from mobile phones to tablets to any operating systems -- because we are OS-independent with this approach.

So I think customers are excited with that, and they now know that there is a long-term plan to touch all categories -- which, by the way, is not done by any of the other players in the industry.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3967121-dassault-systemes-dasty-ceo-bernard-charles-q1-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript

Transcript edited for clarity.

Comments

[Neil]

Well, Bernard Charles and analysts share a twilight zone every quarter along the lines of a Steve Jobs product presentation, but hey as long as the product is good looking, the earnings are above average, or can be explained, and there is a impressive sounding, (albeit nonsensical) action plan in progress, the analysts go away happy and we keep moving along.
I've identified that play before and you wouldn't print my comments presumably because that view is too honest/controversial. Its good to see then every now and again people aren't afraid to publish their own thinking rather than rehash company provided blurb.
Does Bernard make claims and assertions that don't ring true? Possibly. Does Bernard really have the clues these days to lead or are DS still talking in circles in denial over the great Catia Lite in the cloud misadventure? As a humble user I couldn't say however in recent times we have tended to become comfortably numb to disseminated claims and non-stick bravado. Official data like the US jobs report is a case in point. Call me a luddite if you must but I do have suspicions about that too.
Regretfully I do have little or no confidence in Bernard's ability to understand SW users needs and set viable directions for SW.. I am pretty sure having a fashionably blue mono-toned UI for all apps or having CAD on a smartphone is not regarded by customers as a worthwhile pursuit but then who are we to say...perhaps we are just not sophisticated enough to know what's good for us.