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Issue #532 : : September 30, 2007 |
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In this issue: Customers Feel Ripped Off by International Pricing Book
Review: Out of the Inbox, plus the other regular columns . |
Write the editor. Make him smile. Through Paypal, consider donating $25 in support of upFront.eZine. Or else. We're trendy. We have a Weblog. WorldCAD Access. |
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You are receiving this issue early, because of the Autodesk's Manufacturing Media Summit in Paris that I'll be attending this week. The following week sees me still in Europe, travelling to Bad Krozingen (Germany) and Lyon (France), and so expect no upFront.eZine until the week of Oct 15. In the meantime, keep up to date with events on WorldCAD Access at worldcadaccess.typepad.com
Customers Feel Ripped Offs by International Pricing This week, a class action law suit was launched in Canada against auto manufacturers and dealer associations for maintaining prices as much as $10,000 higher in Canada than the USA -- especially galling since many of the cars sold in the USA were manufactured in Canada. Every so often, readers bring up the issue of CAD software pricing outside of the United States. Some CAD vendors have a reasonable pricing policy, or a one-price strategy. For example, Kubotek lets distributors in Southeast Asia set prices to meet local conditions, with 50% going back to head office in USA. SYCODE of India has a single price for all its customers, as does upFront.eZine Publishing. Some American CAD vendors, unfortunately, expect non-Americans to pay much, much more, as the letters below point out. With the American dollar sinking, will American CAD vendors keep the profits for shareholders -- or will they pass on the savings from the cheaper US dollar to international customers? - - - "I run AutoCAD LT 2005. The cost in New Zealand to upgrade
to Revit, ex-Autodesk, is NZ$14,500 (US$10,875), including $3,500
training and GST [sales tax], which is a whopping great cost
to someone like me. Is this costing similar for US and Canadian
patrons? Why so much [here]?" The editor replies: "In US and Canada, Autodesk currently has this crossgrade promotion: Pay US$1,995 to upgrade AutoCAD LT 2005, 2006, 2007, or 2008 to Revit Architecture 2008, or AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2008, or Revit Structure 2008, or AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite 2008 before October 15. You may wish to see if Autodesk in your region matches the 5x-cheaper North American offer." - - - "I run a very small product design business in the UK and our single biggest overhead is software. We are 100% legal -- right down to typeface. As a designer, I do feel very strongly about this. "But sometimes I seriously wonder if the mainstream CAD vendors are not having a laugh with their pricing structures. We use Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt, VX Designer, and SolidWorks Classic -- all the latest versions, all on subscriptions, all full commercial. "Ashlar and VX are the good guys. The purchase price is pretty much the same worldwide. The real baddies are SolidWorks. Over 10 years I have purchased and specified 25+ seats to customers. In the UK, SolidWorks is priced as below:
"These prices equate to dollars in the USA. For instance, SW Classic is US$3,995. Given current 2:1 exchange rate, that makes it TWICE the price in the UK for the same language installation. The same pricing structure applies to Inventor, Pro/E, Solid Edge, and others. "Personally I am amazed that the European Union has not addressed this as it is anti-competitive and involves price fixing -- given the recent Microsoft situation, who, IMHO compared to the MCAD companies, offers good value software, but there you go! "The argument from SolidWorks and others is that the operating and marketing costs are higher outside the USA, which doesn't translate to a 100% price increase in my book. The suspicion is further enhanced by the fact that the CTO another USA-based CAD company told me that operating costs are actually less in Europe than the USA due to lower salaries and geography. "We can't just buy the software in the USA and use in the UK. That is illegal and contravenes the license. "I would like to see a Web site compares retail pricing
for software in each distribution zone. This would be a name and
shame exercise. After all, if minnows like Ashlar, VX, IronCAD,
Think3, etc. can offer pretty much a single worldwide price, why
can't SolidWorks/Dassault, Autodesk, PTC, or UGS?" The editor replies: "Canada suffers a similar problem, even though the CDN$ is now par with the US$. Companies continue to charge 10%-50% more here, even through the cost of business is lower here due to lower wages (by 20% on average) and free social benefits paid by government, such as health insurance." - - - And now turning to the people in the middle, the dealers: "SolidWorks prices its products in US dollars for all North American Value Added Resellers. The current list pricing for SolidWorks Subscription Renewal Products is:
"Since renewal notices are sent well in advance, CAD MicroSolutions policy is to set the [US$-CDN$] exchange rate for SolidWorks software and subscription products at the beginning of each quarter. "For example, for the 3rd quarter (July 1 - September 30) we are using an exchange rate of $1.10, the price that we could buy US$ for from the bank on July 3. Customers are always given the choice to pay in US$ if they can purchase US$ at a lower rate. "I have a customer that renews each year on October 30: 2002 = $1,995 "This year, well, I guess we'll see what happens this week with the Canadian dollar! [Bank exchange rate on Sept 28 was $0.9758.] "If CAD MicroSolutions had not followed the policy
to pass the savings from the strengthening of the CDN dollar on
to our customer, he would have been overcharged $1,886. For an independent
design-contractor using SolidWorks, or a company struggling to complete
internationally, it goes without saying that every dollar counts."
Book
Review:
I've been using AutoCAD for 22 years, and have written a hundred books on the subject. I reviewed many CAD books back in the days when book reviews were common in CAD publications; some were innovative, others were just sad. But for nearly a decade, it's been mostly silence on the book review front. Then earlier in the summer, a book arrived in the mail from Sybex: 'AutoCAD Secrets Every User Should Know' by Dan Abbott. Reading it, I got excited: here's a book for every AutoCAD user, even oldtimers like me. This book's conversational tone makes for easy reading. But you won't want to read it through. It's too overwhelming with one useful tip after another after another. I suggest reading a couple of pages a day, marking items with a yellow highlighter. Such as these tips:
Worthwhile for the US$26.39 it costs to order from amazon.com. Good job, Mr Abbott!
Adobe ships Technical Communication Suite (US$1,599) for technical publishing and training. It bundles Acrobat 3D v8, Captivate 3, FrameMaker 8, and RoboHelp 7. www.adobe.com/technicalcommunicationsuite Autodsys announces AcceliCAD 2008 V2 (US$375) with full compatibility with AutoCAD 2008 DWG file formats, batch plotting, system variable editor, enhanced attribute editing, and more. www.autodsys.com Nemetschek uncovers Allplan BIM 2008 with 2D drawing,
3D design, and object-oriented building modeling, along with quantity
and cost reporting. COADE releases CADWorx fieldPipe 2008 that integrates CADWorx Plant Professional with fieldPipe for Leica fieldPro to produce AutoCAD-based site designs and design verification. www.coade.com PARTsolutions now publishes 3D mechanical component catalogs in the Google 3D Warehouse using SketchUp software. www.part-solutions.com nPower Software releases Power ProEtoMax for translating native Pro/E files directly into 3ds Max/Viz for rendering and animation. www.nPowerSoftware.com CAD Schroer Group announces version 3.0 of MEDUSA4
Design Automation Suite with intelligent STEP and IGES interfaces,
SMART Edit 'parametrics on demand', and Unicode. SolidWorks unveils PDMWorks Enterprise 2008 for
managing bills of material, replication of data across sites, data
connectivity, and more. www.solidworks.com
And SYCODE launches reverse engineering plug-ins for AutoCAD
and Rhinoceros (US$250 each). The Point Cloud software
drapes surfaces or wrap meshes over point clouds. - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
People/Companies on the Move AVEVA promotes Hanno Tam to the position of vp sales for AVEVA Americas. Due to family health issues, Tilo Brandis is no longer
president of UGS PLM Software; his replacement is Helmuth
Ludwig. Mr Ludwig is the former president of Siemens Systems
Engineering.
Market News The Ralph Nader-founded Public Citizen group is representing Timothy Vernor at no cost in his law suit against Autodesk. The world's largest CAD company asked eBay to prevent Vernor from reselling legal copies of its software, as would normally permitted for books, automobiles, and so on. Public Citizen wants this issue clarified by the US court.
WorthWhile Web http://www.hfinster.de http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/09/24/the-inq-guide-to-the-baleful-side-of-pr-bunnies
Letters to the Editor Re: Autodesk's Grand Unification Plan "One area I don't see Intergraph heavy in is what we call
'central plants. These are power plants for hospitals, colleges,
etc. Not on the scale of refineries, but bigger in piping effort
than large commercial jobs. Right now we are trying to find the
ideal solution and feel a bit like Goldielocks: one is to too small,
another to big and expensive. If Autodesk provides something just
right -- who knows, we might just be game." - - - Re: IronCAD V10 "The single scene model is not unique to IronCAD. CADKEY Workshop introduced this methodology (where a single file contains internally, externally referenced, and linked assemblies) nearly seven years ago. KeyCreator continues and adds to the technology. "One file format (.ckd) contains single parts, multiple parts, part drawing layouts, internally referenced subassemblies and assemblies, or any combination of them all. All .ckd files can be used as external references to other .ckd files, with the ability to pick and choose what will be available for reference elsewhere. "In terms of rapid display, KeyCreator can load visual data only, with full solid model data only loaded when editing is required. Think lightweight assemblies. KeyCreator also enjoys all the benefits you outlined of the HOOPS environment -- also introduced with CADKEY Workshop 20 some seven years ago. "KeyCreator's 2D is an integrated part of the KeyCreator
environment, unlike IronCAD and CAXA. The 2D and 3D functionality
is truly seamless. Solids and surfaces may be trimmed/broken/transformed
by the 2D tools, and 2D entities may be likewise edited by surface
and solid entities. One file format, one environment, one dataset.
IronCAD is just catching up." [Radix distributes KeyCreator in the UK and Eire.] - - - "I have enjoyed your ezine for years and really appreciate
all the effort you put into it."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "THIS KIOSK DISPLAYS IN-STORE PRICES -- WHICH MAY DIFFER
FROM NATIONAL INTERNET PRICES."
Notable Quotable "Want to 'converse' with advertisers? Me neither."
Thank You to Our Subscribers These great people support upFront.eZine through their contributions of $25 or more. Thank you, guys!
Copyright 2007 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.0 and up.
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