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Solidworks sales are roaring, leaving all competitors in its dust. During last week's conference call with financial analysts, Dassault Systemes explained why.
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Jay Vleeschhouwer from Griffin Securities:
Let me start by asking about the continued momentum you've had with Solidworks . It had a very good 2016, particularly in terms of new license momentum, and that's continued now through the first three quarters of this year. And at least by our calculation you've been able to sustain an annual run rate of new licenses at well over 60,000 new licenses, well above the rest of the peer group.
Can you talk about the two or three most significant changes or drivers to that momentum? Was there something that you did in terms of channel management; was it promotional activity; was it the focus on large account sales that you talked about at Solidworks World earlier this year; or anything you can comment on as to the main drivers?
Bernard Charlès of Dassault Systemes:
I think we continue to increase the gap versus any other solutions [competitors] ... [through] differentiation in terms of relevancy and competitiveness of the solutions of good technology, good products. That's for one.
And I think it has a very positive effect on also the mood, first of all to the user community adoption speed, on the mood of our resellers, and the will for them to grow.
We also made an evolution of our business model two years ago, to really incentivize the resellers to be more growth-focused, [while] still providing a well balanced model with them. [When] they make money, they can reinvest, and they grow. And I think the mood with our channel, not only the user community, but the sales channel is also very positive, and they see the dynamic of that.
There is a third aspect. We have provided ... visibility about the future of Solidworks, namely connection with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as one; second, the future of Solidworks through a browser, which is really something really important for our clients, even though they want -- they love Solidworks on desktop. And third, Solidworks truly on the cloud, and I think the fact that they now see this as part of a credible and visible plan in some way accelerate for them the will to expand their install base.
And last but not least, we continue to expand our cooperation with third-party software. One of them is Altium. We can do circuit board design extremely well integrated, and we can provide solutions which are more than just the Solidworks desktop.
So those are basically the four factors, and they are well aligned. And finally we are becoming maybe the only company to continue to work with an indirect channel -- on an indirect channel even when cloud is coming because we think we will continue with our indirect channel even for cloud solutions.
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