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Issue #589 : : January 20, 2009 |
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In this issue: Can Low-Cost CAD Benefit from These Spartan Times?
Geometry and Mathematics Integrated
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Can Low-Cost CAD Benefit from These Spartan Times? Retiring Intel chairman Craig Barrett says, "In the good times, you can get a bit careless, or not focused as much on efficiency. In bad times, you’re forced to see if there is a technology" that will help. Mr Barrett experienced ten economic dips. I saw a similar trend throughout the last 25 years: when times were good, companies bought CAD because they had the cash; when times were bad, companies bought more CAD, because they wanted to save cash.
This Recession's Twist But this time things might be different. Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance of the 'New York Times' report on a several forms of technology that reduce expenses, but with a twist, as their headline "$200 Laptops Break a Business Model" suggests. In previous recessions, companies cut expenses by buying technology to replace humans. In this recession, however, the technological landscape is different. Coming into the recession...
This time around, the twist is that the word "spending" may well be removed from the phrase "technological spending." When companies "invest" in new technology this year and next, there might be no bonuses for the team making the sale, because there won't be a sales team, because there won't be a sale. Companies looking to cut costs will look at technology that costs nothing.
The Dream of a Low-Cost Provider We've already seen last autumn's threat of recession dampening the income enjoyed by the big boys who pump out ExpensiveCAD. Alibre ceo Paul Grayson hopes his company will become a beneficiary of customers' reduced spending. In "The Future of 3D CAD Software Pricing" he opines that "Now the stage is set for a significant reversal of fortune." It is time for $1,000 to become the new norm for CAD software pricing, he insists, rather than the current $5,000-level. I don't think, however, that Mr Grayson has a case. After all, it is cheaper to pay an AutoCAD subscription for a couple of years than to buy Alibre Design. Instead, companies in retrenchment mode may well cut off their subscriptions payments unilaterally, and be content maintaining technology that previously pervaded their offices. Faith Popcorn's "cocooning" comes to mind. As for the threat from CAD vendors who dream of penalty payments for "missed" subscription income, I'd think that assertive customers would counter with, "Want me back? Make me a deal." Or else take that nonsense clause in front of the courts. (Give me an idea: next time a Bentley or a SolidWorks employee subscribes, I should bill them $350: $25 for the current year + 13 missed years.) Links: Geometry and Mathematics Integrated After the press-release-modestly-asserts comment I made in last week's upFront.eZine, Shyamal Roy of Geomate called to respond. His press release statement, "CADCALCS 2.0 represents the first significant improvement in design calculation methodology since Romans built aqueducts," might be an exaggeration, but only a very small one. And then asked to show me his new software release. Version 2.0 updates CADCALCS, the only software that integrates geometry and parametrics with mathematics. The concept is not, however, new. A decade or two ago, there was Premise from DesignView and before it, there was the Cognition software that came out of ComputerVision. The two failed partly due to their high cost, he mused; by contrast, his software is priced like Excel, $299 for a dual home-and-work license; $99 for students. Design and calculations were separate functions, historically. The slide rule on the desk, next to the drafting table; the spreadsheet running in one window, CAD in another. He is surprised that CAD vendors have yet to figure out how to combine the two. For instance, PTC bought MathSoft, but haven't integrated it into Pro/E.
CADCALCS 2 The software, he told me, consists of two millions lines of code. A reason for the large number is that Mr Roy and his programmers added a pre-built matrix solver that contains every possible geometric solution. For example, there are 7! (factorial 7 = 5,040) ways in which a line and a circle can interact. Add an element to the drawing area, and the software pigeonholes it in the matrix. Geometric problems are solved in a near-instant. The purpose of the software is to capture function, not form. It operates in 2D only. It reads CAD drawings in DXF R14 format, the most popular, he told me. Once the design is solved in CADCALCS, you send the drawing back to the CAD software for detailing -- also via DXF. (The constraints are not retained.) The user interface looks like a cross between a CAD program (with a drawing area and a simple toolbar), and a spreadsheet. You can catch a glimpse of it at http://www.upfrontezine.com/figs/cadcalcs.jpg . The software is two-way compatible with Excel: spreadsheet cells can be copy'n pasted into CADCALCS as text fields, and vice versa. There's 88 built-in functions, and you can add your own. Constraints are inferred automatically, and you can add your own. The screen grab shows a goal-seeking example: what diameter should the round hole be for the beam to deflect by a set amount. Change the amount of deflection, and CADCALCS spends a few seconds iterating towards the answer. Geomate also offers a high-end version of CADCALCS that includes FEA and other extensions for $2,995. Note from the editor: this issue is shorter than usual, due to the editor recovering from the flu. - - - These were some of the news items that were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com >:
Seminars & Conferences SolidWorks World 2009 is Feb. 8-11 in Orlando FL USA. www.solidworks.com/pages/swworld09/index.html ODA World Conference 2009 is Apr 27–29 in Leiden, The Netherlands. No Web page yet, but the planning committee is calling for presentations through www.opendesign.com/contact
WorthWhile Web http://bullcross.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-iphone-and-poor-apple-management.html
http://technollama.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-windows-virus-infects-millions-of.html
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245859/qa-microsoft-defends-return-to-drm.html Spin Doctor of the Moment "Microsoft believes there needs to be greater openness and choice for customers in the mainframe market."
Notable Quotable "YAHOO = Yet Another Hiring Over and Out"
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