With the recent release of Solid Edge ST9, I had the opportunity to ask Siemens PLM Software a few questions. John Fox is vp of marketing for mainstream engineering at Siemens.
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Ralph Grabowski: How many users does Solid Edge have? Last figure I heard was 550,000. Is this total (commercial + educational) or purely commercial users?
John Fox: At Solid Edge University 2014 in Atlanta, we announced that we had sold more than 500,000 seats of Solid Edge, not including our academic student edition, and not including our free Solid Edge 2D Drafting offering.
It was a nice milestone for us. We generally don’t disclose these types of numbers at Siemens, but we made an exception for that milestone.
Solid Edge ST cutting solids with a sweep line
Grabowski: A new feature in ST9 is storing the license in an account "on the cloud" and then moving the license from machine to machine, as needed. Does this kind of license cost more than a node-locked one?
Fox: The cloud-enabled licensing method works with our existing node locked licenses, so the cost of the license does not change. It basically makes it very easy for the user to “move” their node locked license from device to device using the cloud to keep track of this.
Grabowski: And is this kind of license specific to SE9 (ie, it cannot be used with earlier releases of Solid Edge)?
Fox: This licensing option is specific to ST9. Solid Edge users can also still use the current floating license, where they use a server to keep track of the licenses. Floating licenses have a small uplift (around 2%) compared to a node locked license.
There is a good blog here on this subject:https://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/Solid-Edge-ST9-and-the-Cloud/ba-p/346814
Grabowski: I see rates posted for subscribing to Solid Edge ST9, which range from $100/month to $420/month, depending on the functions. I am wondering what the permanent license price is?
Fox: We don’t publish the price of our perpetual licenses.
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https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/solid-edge/st9/
[Editor note: Other CAD vendors tend to price their annual subscriptions at 1/3 the cost of a permanent license.]
I seriously doubt they have actually "sold" 500,000 licenses, since many of their education (school) licenses are granted, not sold (and they make a big deal about the huge grant value, using commercial pricing to value the grant). Notice he only said the total didn't include the "student edition", avoiding whether the total included education licenses used by schools.
Posted by: David Schaller | Sep 21, 2016 at 12:02 PM