Alibre CEO Blog

Dance Sucka!

Anyone who has used a software application of most any type has dealt with licensing the application, and I am sure we would all agree that some vendors do it really well, putting the interests and convenience of the customer first, and others not so well, putting the interests and convenience of the customer somewhere well below their own.

Let me start by simply stating the following: I believe if you purchase a software application you should be free to install and use it on any computer you own or use, and on as many computers as you own or use, such as a home computer, another computer at work at different location, and so on, without having to uninstall the application on other computers first. Further, it should be easy to do so and the software vendor from whom you purchased the application should be willing to enthusiastically assist you in the process.

Now I am not saying you should be able to buy a single license of an application and install it on multiple computers for multiple people to use at the same time, but if it is a matter of necessity or convenience to have the application installed on multiple computers such that the license is never in use simultaneously by more than one person, then such use is completely in line with the the spirit of the license agreement – or it should be! Technically, you should be able to keep the software in use continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as long as it is not used by two people concurrently. Further, if it would be legal to use the software on one computer if you uninstall it from another computer first, when the use would be the same either way, then it seems punitive to force the honest customer to inefficiently uninstall and install the software over and over again. This reminds me of the outlaw villain in the old west who shoots at the victim's feet making him dance, but in this case the "victim" is the customer.

Here are a few examples of software license agreements that explicitly prevent common usage that is both convenient for the customer and typically completely adheres to the intent of the license agreement:

SolidWorks
“If you have paid the license fee for a single user license, this Agreement permits you to install and use one copy of the Software on any single computer at any time (i.e., if you change computers, you must de-install the Software from the old computer before installing it on the new computer)”
Link to SolidWorks license agreement.

Autodesk's AutoCAD“…You may Install and Access one (1) copy of the Software on one
(1) individual Computer, solely for Your internal business needs. You may not allow the Software to be Accessed, operated, or viewed from, or Installed or uploaded to, other Computers through a network connection. Except as otherwise explicitly permitted, You may not Install or Access the Software other than on one (1) Computer at a time.”
Link to AutoCAD license agreement.

Now here’s one that puts the customer first:

The TurboTax license agreement (End User License) for the Basic, Deluxe, Premier, and Home & Business versions allows you to install TurboTax on all computers owned by you (at home or work).

And here are the operative sections from Alibre’s license agreement:

You may install, use, access, display, run, or otherwise interact with ("RUN") this copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, or any prior version for the same operating system, on a single computer, workstation, terminal, handheld PC, or other digital electronic device ("COMPUTER"). The primary user of the COMPUTER on which the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is installed may make copies for his or her exclusive use on other computers.

Alibre, in fact, provides a simple and automated process for obtaining additional license grants for additional computers.

Most vendors rationalize extremely restrictive and inconvenient licensing policies as necessary to prevent illegal use and piracy, however, anyone who plans to pirate software can easily obtain a “crack” for essentially any application from a number of sleazy software pirates on the web.

This brought to mind that old saying associated with gun control that goes something like this: “Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.” Here’s a twist on the saying directed at software vendors that I think is fitting to the topic being discussed:

“Make software licensing restrictive and inconvenient and only honest customers will be restricted and inconvenienced.”

When I say the CAM software market is boring I’m not referring to a machining process…

This is an industry in defensive mode, fearful of doing anything that might jeopardize their already weak hold on shrinking pieces of the pie. In fact, when is the last time you heard anything remotely interesting from this segment of the market? I’m guessing it’s been years, many years.

We have really tried for the last few years to reach out to the “established” CAM software community. You’ve heard of the vendors I’m referring to, GibbsCAM, Mastercam (CNC Software), etc.

Talk about the CAD software vendors being set in their ways, CAM software vendors make them look like Web 2.0 startups in comparison. God forbid they do something to upset this CAD software vendor or that. I mean, they might lose their Gold Partner logo, or worse not get invited to SolidWorks World or CAD Camp.

So we just decided enough is enough, quit trying to wake these companies up and get on with it.

The CAM software market needs a shake up just like the CAD software market, and given the pressure on US manufacturing, maybe it needs it more. So that’s exactly what we’re doing. Here is a link to our recent announcement of a new suite of Alibre CAM products.

If you aren’t aware, last September we released a fully integrated parametric CAM application called Alibre CAM. Alibre CAM is a CNC milling application that supports 2½ and 3-axis milling. It’s fully integrated with Alibre Design with a single user interface and databse, and the toolpaths it generates are associative with the 3D model from which they are generated, meaning if you edit the part, the toolpath updates. The entry point is free with Alibre CAM Xpress.

If you’ve checked recently, integrated parametric CAD/CAM can cost close to $20,000 per license. In fact, a current quote for Mastercam X2 Mill Level 3 comes in around $12,000, and that doesn’t include parametric CAD, actually it doesn’t include solid modeling at all, that’s an extra charge.

Being generous to SolidWorks, even though they claim an average selling price of over $7,000 a license, throw in the base version of SolidWorks for $3,995, plus $1,295 maintenance, for another $5,300. So now you’re at a total price of $17,300 and I haven’t included CAM maintenance, training, and who knows what else.

A lot of money for a machine shop struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly global manufacturing market. And what you’re left with is two separate products from different companies.

Our initial Alibre CAM add-on has received a great reception from customers since we launched. So we decided to up the ante by expanding the product line and making 3D parametric CAD/CAM accessible to everyone, starting at free.

As I discussed in my last blog post, this is also part of a bigger trend which we call Personal CAD, and now with Alibre CAM it’s Personal CAD/CAM. The trend includes a variety of companies offering Personal CNC equipment as well, companies like Tormach, ShopBot and Sherline. You can actually put together a Sherline CNC mill for less than $2,000. In fact, check out this recent post from an individual who designed and built his own CNC router with a goal of a cost around $750. Note that he used Alibre Design Xpress for his CAD work.

This is really cool, and it’s just the beginning.

Saving 100 petajoules of energy and 14 million metric tons of CO2

If you haven’t heard, Alibre has identified a new CAD market, a market we're calling Personal CAD. I wrote about it last month in our newsletter and also blogged about it.

What defines Personal CAD? Well, we define it as simply the ability for a person to break free of the restrictions imposed by the traditional CAD vendors and own their own CAD system, deciding for themselves how to use it. Personal CAD is accessible by anyone, without intervention; you don’t need an employer to buy it for you, or to teach you how to use it.

It is my contention that broad access to professional CAD by anyone can and will have a dramatic impact on the world. This isn’t just hyperbole, there are literally millions of people around the world with ideas, that if realized can change all of our lives for the better. Just as today’s advanced CAD tools help companies bring their ideas to market, professional CAD software can also help individuals bring their ideas to reality. And while there has been lots of debate about how saturated the market is for 3D CAD, all of this discussion has been in the context of commercial manufacturing companies. Until now, there has been little or no discussion about personal 3D CAD use, largely because it hasn’t been practical in the past, for all the reasons that I have raised in the post above, such as cost, complexity and so on. It is the untapped creative potential of the individual that I find so exciting, individual creativity unfettered by the day-to-day demands of a company that makes certain products for specific markets according to entrenched processes under the control of a particular management team. What about just boiling it all down to what I believe to be a limitless supply of world-changing ideas that have yet to be discovered.

Maybe an example will help.

John Nobel is a design engineer living in Malaysia. On hiatus from his job, he had been looking for ways to move his career in a direction that was more environmentally and socially focused. The idea was right in front of him, or over him really, spinning right above his head.

John noticed that he had nine ceiling fans in his house, and at virtually any time of the day or night several were running, often continuously. Literally the first thing he saw every morning when he awoke was a spinning ceiling fan and it peaked his interest.

He discovered that the design of a common ceiling fan’s motor had changed little since their introduction over 100 years ago. As you might guess, the 100-year old design isn’t very efficient. According to John, a typical ceiling fan is only 20% efficient, generating only 15W of mechanical power while consuming 75W, the remaining 60W being dissipated as heat.

By redesigning the fan with modern components, such as an electronically commutated motor, he was able to increase the efficiency to about 60%, reducing the necessary power input to about 25W versus 75W.

It’s estimated that in the United States alone, there are about 158 million ceiling fans installed, annually consuming approximately 150PJ – that's petajoules for those not familiar with the abbreviation. Fans designed with the high-efficiency motors chosen by John can reduce that by about 100PJ, eliminating 14 million metric tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere ever year.

Truly amazing.

While in the process of designing his dramatically more efficient fan, dubbed the “MyFan,” and searching for necessary components, John ran across a green design contest being run by Premier Farnell, a public company in the UK that distributes products ranging from electronic components to industrial products from over 3,500 suppliers.

John submitted the design in the Live EDGE design contest -- along with 3,500 others from 102 countries – and won the $100,000 prize. There’s another contest starting up this year so check out the Live EDGE site at the link above for more detail.

I won’t dwell on the CAD product John used, but here’s what he said about it:

“I’m an Electronics Engineer not Mechanical, so I hadn’t used 3D tools myself before. I didn’t have the budget for SolidWorks so I purchased [another product]. It’s interesting to see how 3D CAD has evolved. About eight years ago in New Zealand, a company I was working for bought SolidWorks for about $20K and the ex-auto industry engineering manager was marveling at how cheap that was compared to the $100K that 3D CAD cost just five years before that! Of course, [the CAD product I purchased] completely blows that out of the water."

So one individual came up with a better design for a product we all take for granted that will have a dramatic impact. That’s the Personal CAD market; you can learn more about it here and download our Personal CAD white paper.

New Game, New Rules: Now It's Personal.

For quite a while we’ve been noticing an increasing trend within the CAD market: the growing number of people who are using 3D CAD for personal business or side projects in addition to the work they do for their employer.

A great example is Bill Price, the subject of an Alibre case study included in the February issue of the Alibre newsletter available here. His passion for motorcycles and interest in designing one of his own led to his purchase of Alibre Design. His engine design went on to place third in the 3D InterOp modeling contest hosted by Spatial. A spectacular image of the V-Twin motorcycle engine Bill designed with Alibre Design is included in the case study.

A time is coming when owning a personal 3D CAD system will be as common for designers, engineers, machinists and others in manufacturing industries as a carpenter owning a set of hand tools, or a writer owning a word processor.

This isn’t uncommon; in many industries individuals skilled in a particular trade own their own personal set of “tools of the trade.” Writers have word processors, photographers have cameras and lenses, painters have paints and brushes, woodworkers have saws, drills, lathes, and a variety of other specialized tools. Usually the more serious one is about their skill the more advanced and professional grade the tools. This trend was also seen in desktop publishing and graphic design when formerly exclusive desktop applications became accessible to anyone. Now it’s commonplace to find a graphic designer who has their own personal copy of PhotoShop and Illustrator. I spoke about a related trend in a previous post calling it Democratization, wherein formerly exclusive technologies are becoming accessible to the mainstream.

In these times of outsourcing and “off-shoring” it’s also becoming important for people to take control of their own destiny. Rather than depending on a lifetime job at one employer, personally owning the responsibility of building and honing skills that make one valuable and employable is becoming the prudent path to ensuring long-term income potential.

In researching this article I came across the following thoughts from a technical recruiter and author Brian Graham:

Traditional employees plan on having a long-term relationship with each employer. They believe that if they work hard and do an outstanding job, they’ll be rewarded over the long term for their loyalty. They believe that their company deserves their trust and cares about their well-being. And many people still believe it is the company’s job to provide them with financial security, benefits, training, and opportunities for career advancement. That approach worked for decades, but this day and age it doesn’t work as well any more.

If that’s what you’re expecting from an employer, you may want to rethink that expectation. In all likelihood, it’s not going to happen. Instead, you need to have the mindset of what I call a “skills-based worker”. Unlike a traditional worker, a skills-based worker fully understands that there’s no such thing as job security, and focuses instead on long-term “career security.” Skills-based workers aren’t company men or women. Instead, they define what’s important to them and structure their careers around their personal goals. They’re also open to new ideas.

Unlike traditional workers, who expect companies to map out their career paths for them, skills based workers take charge of their own training and career advancement.

…technology advances so rapidly these days that your skills can become obsolete in a matter of years. To stay at the top of your game, you need to constantly expand your knowledge base, by reading technical journals, getting regular training, and taking every opportunity to learn new skills both on and off the job. Every new skill you pick up—whether it’s a new engineering competency, a foreign language, or perhaps management training, it will make you more employable somewhere down the road. Take stock of your personal career skills and knowledge every six months or so, and if you haven’t mastered something new, do it. You won’t regret it.

The personal CAD use that I am describing is not just about learning 3D CAD. Yes, that is an important skill and one that can be improved over time, but it’s more importantly about simply using state-of-the-art tools to exercise the more important skill of design and engineering, one of those tools being 3D CAD. As with any skill, the more you do it, the better you get. And the better you get, the more capable you become at problem solving and innovating, the key to survival for any business in today’s increasingly competitive global environment.

An interesting aspect of the growing personal CAD market is that it is largely free of the switching cost feared by larger companies, a cost that gradually increases over time as a chosen corporate CAD system becomes entrenched in their business. The personal CAD user has no switching cost, in fact, they benefit from learning another system. They not only learn a different tool that typically deepens their understanding of 3D CAD by exposing functionality in a different way, but they also improve their marketability by expanding the range of applications with which they are familiar.

For example, we find that those who purchase Alibre Design as a personal CAD tool for themselves often use another CAD system like SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER or Unigraphics at work. It’s a rare case when someone using one of these expensive products can justify its purchase for their own personal projects or skills advancement. We believe this type of personal CAD use has grown to the point that it represents a new, distinct and growing market segment.

We have also found that it can work the other way. An individual working for a company that uses 2D CAD, say AutoCAD LT, will oftentimes be motivated to purchase a 3D CAD product to develop a design concept or do some type of consulting well before their employer seriously considers the purchase of 3D software. The employer is then exposed to work their employee is doing with their “personal” product, often through actual work on company designs or projects that the individual decides they can do better in 3D on their own time. You can imagine once an employer sees the benefits of 3D in a real production scenario they are much more likely to invest in the tool themselves.

By Autodesk’s own stats, there are over three million AutoCAD LT users. Let’s say a third of them are doing mechanical drafting work, meaning one million people doing 2D mechanical drafting. Putting aside the logistics of engaging these people and all the marketing-speak of the various vendors claiming their approach to 3D is best, imagine if most of these AutoCAD LT users built the skill to use 3D over time while working for an employer who is doing 2D. I contend there would be a significant benefit to these employers by the simple fact that now their employees could intelligently leverage 3D when it made sense, or better visualize the designs they were working on in 2D by virtue of their improved ability to visualize in 3D. Imagine if every graduating engineering student had their own personal CAD system they took with them as they started their career.

This market is immense. Just to give a glimpse of the size of this market, take the one million 2D mechanical AutoCAD LT users, and add those using full AutoCAD, or IntelliCAD, TurboCAD, or any other 2D drafting application. This number is already huge. Then include the entire existing base of every production 3D product like SolidWorks, Pro/E, Unigraphics, etc. since these folks can also take advantage of a personal CAD product without any impact on what they use at work. This group is more than conjecture, because this is the one we’ve been seeing grow in our own customer base. Taken all together, it’s an enormous market that dwarfs the entire market of production 3D CAD users today.

As one would expect, probably the most important factors contributing to the growing popularity of personal CAD are affordability and ease-of-use. Not to mention the literal and physical aspects of accessibility. Now you can just Google 3D CAD, find a product and directly download a trial version. In certain cases, such as with SketchUp and Alibre Design Xpress, you can literally directly download a completely free product that actually works and isn’t crippled. The popularity of these products has shown that there is widespread interest in using 3D beyond the typical CAD Designer role for an employer.

I was discussing this with someone the other day and they said, but don’t some other CAD companies have personal versions too? It’s true that some have marketing programs that offer various levels of personal use, but all limit it to non-commercial work. For reference, check out the personal version of SolidWorks that can only be obtained by visiting a reseller who then has the ability to grant it to you.

Special Personal Edition Terms

…the SolidWorks Personal Edition does contain significant use restrictions and may not be used for any commercial purposes whatsoever. The creation of models for commercial use is considered a commercial purpose, and therefore, files generated or modified using SolidWorks Personal Edition software cannot be opened by commercial (or other, for example, educational) versions of SolidWorks software. Other use restrictions include:

• A Personal Edition license to use the software expires after 90 days, with option for renewal. It does not include subscription service, and is not upgradeable.
• A watermark which identifies both the software and the files created as a "Personal Edition"; is displayed with the model whenever the model is printed, making it unsuitable for use in a commercial or institutional environments.
• SolidWorks Personal Edition software is node-locked to you and your computer.

Commercial use of the SolidWorks Personal Edition is prohibited. If your company is interested in acquiring SolidWorks licensing for commercial use, please contact an authorized SolidWorks reseller. The SolidWorks Personal Edition software may not be resold, transferred, rented, modified or copied. Any misuse of the terms of the software license agreement will immediately terminate the right to use this software.

This doesn’t even begin to address the personal CAD market I am describing. The market I am describing is a market characterized by commercial use, and in fact, motivated by it, where the personal CAD product can be used for anything from simple training and skills advancement, to designs or concepts related to hobbies or side projects, to activities with an explicit commercial intent like contract work or consulting or an entrepreneurial venture to design the next great widget. The software is owned by the individual permanently and travels with them; it’s one of the tools in their hopefully ever-expanding toolset.

I am interested in hearing from others who use 3D CAD for personal business or those who feel they have a need for it, as well as from those who just have some ideas on the potential impact of the widespread adoption of personal CAD. I’d also enjoy hearing from those who disagree that this is a market at all, or that the growth of such a market would be beneficial to manufacturing at large or that it will improve an individual engineer’s or manufacturing professionals’ ability to maximize their earning potential or find better job opportunities. If you have some thoughts to share, send me an email at personalcad@alibre.com.

The Evolution of 3D CAD and the “Dassault Volume Channel”

The guard is changing. The future of 3D CAD is no longer the purview of a small number of CAD vendors who can tightly control access to 3D CAD technology. Take SolidWorks, for instance. They’ve been on the top of the heap for a while. They’ve had a good run since coming on strong back in 1995 when PTC was arrogantly holding court with Pro/ENGINEER at over $20,000 a seat. They thought they were invincible. The original team at SolidWorks had a great vision, to move 3D parametric CAD to the PC, reduce the price and make it easier to use with a Windows user interface. It worked. PTC is now an also-ran in CAD even though they’ve dropped their prices below that of SolidWorks.

For those who recall, PTC’s reaction to SolidWorks was to disdain it, point out its flaws and shortcomings; Pro/E was demonstrably superior, and it was clearly worth four or five times as much. PTC was all about controlling the customer and deigning to allow them the right to their technology. This wasn’t something just anyone could have, you had to pony up big: big in money for the initial license, big in time – and more money --- for training, and finally even more money for maintenance to get you new versions. Many of us probably also recall the stories of PTC salespeople going over the head of a manager who had refused to buy Pro/E to inform the hapless individual’s boss that his underling obviously didn’t understand the honor that was being conferred.

In the end, it wasn’t a feature battle, but more a battle of competing visions, a war of ideology. PTC was focused on extracting the most money they possibly could. SolidWorks was focused on expanding the market by making 3D available to more users, not necessarily converting users of Pro/ENGINEER to SolidWorks. They were competing against non-consumption, i.e., those who didn’t have 3D CAD.

So it is today with Alibre and SolidWorks. Alibre is all about making 3D CAD accessible to anyone and everyone, and building a business that can do so profitably. Yes, there are some that will retreat into a feature battle, claiming that SolidWorks has this or that feature and Alibre Design doesn’t. Sound familiar? Yes, SolidWorks has some more features than Alibre Design does. Guess what, CATIA has some more features than SolidWorks does. Big deal, think a little bigger. In the words of George Santayana, the Spanish-American philosopher, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Today most of the original SolidWorks team is gone. Their vision, which was laudable, is a thing of the past. A new CEO with marching orders to toe the Dassault line has been installed. Development has moved offshore to India. Dassault now actually refers to SolidWorks as the “Dassault Volume Channel.” This clearly spells out Dassault’s plans for SolidWorks. It’s not the company it used to be.

Alibre is the future of 3D CAD. If you are stuck on this feature or that, you are missing the forest for the trees. Consider what Alibre is well on the way to accomplishing: 3D CAD for everyone, not in words, as in “3D for All” from Dassault, but in reality, as in $1,000 or less for a license of Alibre Design. Aren’t we all better off now with the ubiquity of cell phones and color printers? Note: and soon to be 3D printers – see the 3D Systems announcement or our partnership. Clearly we are, and so will we all be when the barriers erected by the “old school” CAD vendors are removed. The choice is yours: a future characterized as the “Dassault Volume Channel” serving the demands of the Dassault quarterly earnings report, or a future where 3D is as common as a word processor or spreadsheet.

Oh, and I forgot to include Autodesk in the chart above. For them, slot this in somewhere around 1982--->

"Make sure prospect knows Alibre is not good enough…"

FUD according to Wikipedia:

FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products." The term has also been attributed to veteran Morgan Stanley computer analyst Ulrich Weil, though it had already been used in other contexts as far back as the 1920s.

As Eric S. Raymond writes: "The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon."

By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognized phenomenon, epitomized by the traditional axiom of purchasing agents that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment". The result is that many companies' IT departments buy software that they know to be technically inferior because upper management is more likely to recognize the brand.

Basic Sales Strategy…
1.…Make sure prospect knows Alibre is not good enough. Explain why Alibre is being offered at uneconomic pricing.

2. Show prospects benefits of quality support and training through a SolidWorks Value Added Reseller vs having to rely on other users.

3. Show SolidWorks history of innovation due to focus of company & business model.

4. Show SolidWorks solid financial history.

5. Demonstrate the business benefit of SolidWorks solution and return on investment.

6. Demonstrate the benefits of choosing a market leader

Executive Business Summary…
SolidWorks is a safe long term investment.

So goes the “Alibre Competitive Snapshot” produced by SolidWorks.

I read this with a tinge irony.

I recall putting together a similar analysis 20 years ago when I worked at Autodesk. It was called, “How to Sell AutoCAD Against CADKEY.” I worked at Autodesk in the late 1980s and was responsible for competitive analysis, so I would produce this sort of tool for the channel, the Autodesk VARs. I recall it being frustrating that once the shred of real technical comparison was exhausted I had to fill a lot of space with things like, “more third-party developers,” “more trained users,” etc.

To produce the piece I recall sitting and working with CADKEY at length and finding it had all these robust and elegant tools for real mechanical design in 3D. It could do things like calculating precise apparent intersections, snapping directly to them, trimming relative to them, etc., or projecting geometry onto other planes with the result being precise analytical curves, like an ellipse or spline.

For those who aren’t familiar with this, in those days a lot of 3D design was done in wireframe, in fact, at that time it was pretty much all done in wireframe, although some surfacing and solid modeling systems were available on the high-end. When viewing a 3D wireframe model on the computer from a given viewpoint, sometimes lines appear to cross or intersect, but in actual 3D space they don’t intersect. This is known as an apparent intersection. When modeling it is often important to be able to grab, snap to, trim or extend to this apparent intersection. CADKEY could do this sort of thing in its sleep with splines, ellipses and so on. It also supported real ANSI dimensioning standards. AutoCAD couldn’t even draw a real ellipse, much less calculate an apparent intersection and trim to it. And as hard as it is to believe the leading drafting system AutoCAD didn’t even support dimensioning standards. But we had more third-party developers and resellers -- and we had the “nozzle” in 3D! A shout out to Don Strimbu! Extra points for anyone who knows what I am talking about.

As an engineer, I was really impressed. I recall even calling CADKEY for support a number of times. I actually got to be known there, the Autodesk competitive guy, and they really supported me, graciously I might add.

I was sweating it because I knew, at that time at least, CADKEY was technically far better for mechanical drafting and design. I was young and idealistic, fully believing it was more about technical merit, what you knew, not who you knew. All they needed to do was keep doing what they were doing. Unfortunately, for them and the industry, they didn’t keep doing that. They got pushed off their game. FUD.

I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to the folks at CADKEY. I was part of the reason -- albeit probably only a small part -- that a better product was beaten in the market by a weaker one.

So back to the SolidWorks piece. I like and respect the folks at SolidWorks. They have earned their position the old fashioned way. Things are changing though; it’s no longer the days when the only competitor was Pro/E running on UNIX workstations costing five times as much. Now there’s Alibre offering comparable value at 20% of the price. And of course, a host of “also rans” that cost about the same. And there’s always Autodesk, pumping out Inventor shelfware with AutoCAD to pump up the numbers. Ah, for the good old days. PTC’s competitive snapshot against SolidWorks in 1995 could have read identically to the Alibre Competitive Snapshot of today by SolidWorks. What goes around come around.

We’re safe, not like them.
Fear.

They won’t be around in the future.
Uncertainty.

How can they possibly sell their software at such uneconomic pricing?
Doubt.

Of course, "uneconomic," means uneconomic for SolidWorks in this case, not the customer.

To Alibre, as it did for SolidWorks in 1995, much of it boils down to the one operative phrase: “Make sure prospect knows Alibre is not good enough.” Of course, in 1995 it read, “Make sure prospect knows SolidWorks is not good enough.” The corollary, though, is that if it is good enough: “Houston, we have a problem.”

I’ve heard it said that in court a lawyer should never ask a question to which she/he doesn’t know the answer.

At the end of the day, if Alibre Design gets the job done efficiently and reliably, the arguments to pay thousands of dollars more are reduced to generalities, like more third-party partners and "we're number one." These are the barriers to entry that all entrenched vendors rely upon to maintain the status quo.

We believe most people just need and want the tool with which they can complete their job on time and on budget -- and they want it at the best price.

We have a simple proposition: try it. Once you confirm for yourself that it works as advertised, then you can choose whether things like more resellers, “history of innovation” or "we're number one," are compelling enough to shell out another $5,000 or more.

One other thing I found interesting, when you search on Google for Alibre, these ads come up.

"I don’t think it’s a small 3D modeller..."

Words have a way of coming back to haunt us sometimes.

The title of this post is from an interview by Martyn Day of MCAD Online in the UK with Buzz Kross from Autodesk. The interview was conducted in November 2005.

Given Autodesk's recent announcement of Inventor LT, I've included an excerpt below:

MD: What do you think about the sub $1,000 3D market? There are rumours that perhaps Adobe could be a brand to create the entry-level here.

RK: The Adobe brand would make some sense in that market but it’s unproven if there is a market there. It’s tough to tell. A lot of people have tried. We have a $700 product in that market, LT, but it’s a 2D draughting product. It’s an interesting debate, if there’s a design product there. I think that there is but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a 3D product, maybe some very smart sketching. It’s more about how things work, or will work, than form. I don’t think it’s a small 3D modeller. That market needs a real design tool, for design proofing, maybe some basic kinematics.

Hmmm? Things seem to have changed. At a minimum, it appears that now a "small 3D modeler" is interesting, to Autodesk at least. I can say for sure that it is not interesting to Alibre.

Let me clarify that what is not interesting to Alibre is the notion of a “small 3D modeler.” Yes, Alibre is all about creating a product that serves 80% - 90% of everyone’s needs at 10% to 20% of the cost of the established mid-range products, but we don’t consider that small. It makes me think of the old children’s story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Not too big, as in massive assemblies with tens or hundreds of thousands of parts, or ultra complex surfaces for turbine blades, car bodies and such, and not too small, like Inventor LT. It needs to be just right. And when it is just right guess what, there is no more need for Inventor.

I am flattered that Ralph thought of me when he commented on Inventor LT at his blog. While I do enjoy any opportunity to “rage against the machine,” I actually view this as a cause for optimism. This is good for the industry, and especially for Alibre.

First, it shows that a large, entrenched -- if not particularly visionary -- vendor saw the Alibre strategy and business, or something very much like it, as very compelling. Second, it shows that the hype behind the massive growth numbers for Inventor were largely that, hype. It stands to reason that if Autodesk was just totally blowing it out as they claimed, selling Inventor as fast as they could crank out CDs, they would not be introducing Inventor LT. Does this not pass the basic common sense test?

As these decisions go in big companies, I am sure there was a winning camp and a losing camp inside Autodesk. Although I suppose it doesn’t matter who “lost” or who “won,” Autodesk has created an interesting dilemma for themselves. Either they make Inventor LT good enough, which means that it WILL shrink Inventor sales, or they will balk at that "threat" and choke it off. Those inside Autodesk who said that a real effort at Inventor LT would cannibalize Inventor sales were right, or at least it could have. But it won’t, because they apparently also had enough influence to limit the functionality of the product to the point of it not being useful for anything other than testing or evaluation, for which its use is limited by the product’s EULA (End User License Agreement). Those who said that there isn't a market for a dramatically de-featured mid-range modeler were right too, there isn’t. There is only a market for a complete product that includes parts, assemblies and drawings, and meets the needs of the majority of users.

And while I am "raging," hasn't the whole "Functional Modeling" story lost some energy these days? Functional modeling seems to be what was being described in the interview with Martyn Day that was referenced earlier: something with “very smart sketching…maybe some basic kinematics…more about how things work…than form.” I guess form at $1,000 a seat won out.

Personally, I think Inventor LT is likely a response to flagging Inventor sales, and that is good for the industry. Inventor LT validates that the market is paying way too much for this technology -- although not necessarily to Autodesk -- or we wouldn't be seeing Inventor LT.

I, for one, applaud Autodesk's Inventor LT announcement. It sounds a lot like Alibre Design Xpress minus assemblies, two years later. And as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Democratization

I have been going on for a while about a broad trend I see that is occurring simultaneously with Globalization, but while this trend is occurring concurrently with Globalization, I think of it as acting orthogonally rather than in parallel. I’ll call it “Democratization,” primarily for the purpose of giving it a name for easy reference. I know the term has been used before, and probably far too often and gratuitously, but it works for me so I’m going to use it. Maybe I can even redeem it, or at least change its inevitable slide to the graveyard of marketing mediocrity. I hope to do that by objectively using it to describe the trend I am talking about rather than as a superlative for a specific vendor’s strategy.

Typically, when we think of globalization we think of the outsourcing of manufacturing or Information Technology to emerging economies like India and China. Thomas Friedman calls this “flattening” of the globe in his painfully long book “The World Is Flat.” In addition to conveying some useful information, the book’s length also had the positive result of keeping him busy and off “Meet the Press” and the Tavis Smiley show for a while. Seriously, while I have heard Tavis on the radio before, I have only seen part of his TV show once, while flipping channels late at night when I couldn’t fall asleep, and Friedman was on, demonizing his usual cast of villains. Politics aside, Friedman’s notion of flattening is related to democratization. While he is primarily focused on the idea of the playing field leveling between countries and economies, a number of the “flatteners” he describes are drivers of democratization. Flatteners such as Netscape, which is essentially how he describes broad access to the Internet via free and easy to use browsers, “open sourcing,” and “in-forming,” of which Friedman says, “"Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own-had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people."

I define Democratization more precisely by its emphasis on the individual. This is in line with the accepted definition of the word democracy which includes, “the principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.” Specifically, the idea behind Democratization is that technologies, products, services, etc., that were formerly exclusively accessible to small groups of experts are becoming available to anyone. Clearly, the Internet is a major driving force in Democratization, but it is only a component of the trend. Outside of the design, engineering and manufacturing software world, consider the Internet’s impact on publishing and distribution of anything: a song, a book, a video, a musical score, etc. Now an individual who was unable to get a record contract, have their book published, get their video viewed, and so on, can publish it themselves online. A notable example of this in practice is the web site www.lulu.com.

Think Wikipedia, Digg, Gootube (as Mark Cuban calls it), the Long Tail, and BOP (Bottom Of the Pyramid). All of these speak to enabling and empowering the individual in some fashion, or at least smaller and smaller segments of society, the limit of which leads to one unique person. While I am looking at this as overwhelmingly positive, as usual, too much of a good thing can also end up being not so good. Consider the views expressed in Jaron Lanier’s essay titled “Digital Maosim.” Jaron argues that the Internet and things like Wikipedia give rise to a collective “hive mind” that actually isn’t so smart. Take Sanjaya on American Idol, please. Jaron is a pretty deep guy, I can only understand about half of what he writes, but I liked his essay. Plus, quoting him, or even being aware of him, is respected by the technorati, so I have that going for me.

So back to the idea of Democratization and how that fits into the design, engineering and manufacturing software world. Using Friedman’s words as a starting point, never before in the history of the planet have so many people had access to -on their own- to the same class of technology used by the world’s leading design, engineering and manufacturing firms.

It goes beyond software and web services to include hardware and machinery. A state of the art Vista-based PC capable of running a powerful 3D CAD system with hardware accelerated graphics can be had for well under $1,000, even under $500. Did you know you can buy a full 3-axis CNC mill from Sears for under $2,000? Sometimes this link does not work so if it doesn’t try searching on “Craftsman CompuCarve Compact Woodworking Machine” under the Tools department, or All departments, at www.sears.com. Granted the reviews on this machine aren’t that great, but it will improve. And this is just one example.

Consider ShopBot Tools. ShopBot produces professional CNC machine tools for under $7,000. Granted this isn’t necessarily a tool for anyone, but this is less than the average selling price of a single license of SolidWorks. It should also be noted that ShopBot uses Alibre Design software to design all their products creating an interesting virtuous cycle: Alibre Design provides affordable and capable software to design lower-cost CNC machine tools that, in turn, create demand for more 3D software, creating more demand for the machine tools, and on and on.

I wrote earlier that I wanted to use Democratization as an objective description of a broad trend versus a marketing tagline for a particular vendor, including Alibre. And if it isn't yet clear, I believe Democratization is a positive trend for all of us. Clearly, the holding of knowledge, power and wealth in the hands of a few is not good. While the deck is still, and probably will always be, stacked in the favor of large organizations with huge resources at their disposal, the Democratization trend shifts an increasingly greater amount of control and opportunity to the individual. If someone creates something of value and has the wherewithal to execute efficiently and smartly – not ingeniously – there is more opportunity to profit from it now than ever before.

Ideally, all vendors will contribute something to the trend, whether willingly and enthusiastically, or ultimately, kicking and screaming. At Alibre we like to think we’re doing our part. Check out our recent initiative with Popular Mechanics to help power their 3D Workshop. Most of you are probably aware of the magazine Popular Mechanics and its focus on inventors, hobbyists, engineers, basically anyone with an interest or passion in how things work, as well as technology in general. This group has recently been dubbed the DIY community, for Do-It-Yourself. Although the DIY moniker may be relatively new, the community is actually not, in fact, Popular Mechanics has been speaking to them for over 100 years. Check out this cover of their January 11, 1902 issue, published when Teddy Roosevelt was in office, and more than ten years before the Titanic sank. Democratization has taken a while to take hold.

For reference, Popular Mechanics “reaches more than 9 million readers monthly,” many of whom are enthusiastic inventors, woodworkers and serious hobbyists likely to be excited about the promise of 3D. The magazine has offered standard 2D prints and fabrication instructions for years, but now, via Alibre’s 3D capabilities, readers will also be able to spin the models around, zoom in on details, and animate the assembly to see all the component parts dynamically in real time with photorealistic textures.

So now any reader of Popular Mechanics can begin to explore and use true 3D. They can start and stop with simply viewing the 3D PDFs and imbedded animations available at the 3D Workshop, or they can take it a step further and download Alibre Design Xpress for free and start modeling their own project, using essentially the same class of 3D parametric solid modeling employed by large manufacturing and engineering firms.

On that note, and in honor of my referencing him above, in the words of the great Teddy Roosevelt, president at the publication of that 1902 issue of Popular Mechanics from so long ago, “It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.”

Google SketchUp, 3D Warehouse and Alibre Design Xpress: an unbeatable combination – for free!

Imagine a future when anyone can get access to state-of-the-art, easy-to-use 3D modeling tools that incorporate rich collaboration and publishing capabilities, and better it's all free and backed by profitable growing businesses.

That future is now. Granted there is much, much more to do, but the release of the Alibre 3D Publisher for Google SketchUp moves the industry a big step forward.

Markets evolve somewhat unpredictably based on a number of factors, including the appearance of innovative new market entrants with game-changing technology, new levels of price-performance, or different business models, or a combination of all of them. Major technology shifts like the PC with DOS and then Windows, the Internet, Search and PPC advertising, Open Source, etc. In the “CAD” world there have been a number of market shifts allowing new entrants to become established and grow to rival existing solutions. For instance, a 2D CAD system running on the newly announced IBM PC and priced at $1,000 in the early 80s. Or 3D parametric solid modeling coming on the scene in the late 80s, soon to be followed by a more affordable Windows-only parametric modeler with a modern UI in the mid 90s to now.

There have been a number of just such game-changing events in the CAD space in the last couple of years that will likely be looked back at as similar catalysts for major market shifts. Adobe’s entry into the manufacturing market with 3D PDF, Google’s acquisition of SketchUp, and dare I have the sheer effrontery to say, free 3D parametric modeling. Google also decided soon after the acquisition to begin offering SketchUp for free as well. At the same time, the plodding consolidation and entrenchment of a small number of vendors, gradually marching their prices higher as they lock in their hapless customers, has captured the imagination and passion of many.

I imagine most familiar with the CAD industry are aware of SketchUp. If you’re not, it’s a really cool 3D CAD application particularly useful in conceptual modeling of in the markets of architecture, interior design, landscape design, etc. The product’s claim to fame is it’s easy to learn and use interface, employing a revolutionary push-pull approach to direct editing. @Last Software, the company that developed it was cranking along nicely with a business model very similar to that of Alibre: making 3D accessible to anyone by providing affordable, easy to use 3D design software over the web.

The CAD world was somewhat surprised when Google acquired @Last Software the developers of SketchUp in March 2006. The rationale for the acquisition at the time was that SketchUp was acquired by Google to enable people around the globe to populate Google Earth with 3D buildings. You can see all sorts of 3D buildings, landmarks and so on in Google Earth now. You can visit the 3D Warehouse and check out the Alibre World Headquarters and view it on Google Earth. That is cool.

Since the acquisition downloads of SketchUp have exploded; on Download.com alone there are over 650,000 (counting the Mac version). In comparison, Alibre Design Xpress has close to 280,000 downloads on Download.com. These numbers were achieved in a little over a year and don’t include the downloads from other sources including the respective company web sites. The numbers are big, putting 3D in the hands of more people than any other single vendor by far, and bigger than the combined totals of many, albeit not bigger than the entire existing traditional market yet. The rate of expansion is staggering. This is part of a shift that is changing the market.

Not long after the acquisition the SketchUp division launched the Google 3D Warehouse, an online 3D "data store" for models created in SketchUp with a nice interface for moving them to Google Earth. The 3D Warehouse is an online place for user-generated 3D content; a rapidly expanding library of data with a free, easy to use CAD tool with which to use it and create more.

Enter the Alibre 3D Publisher, a tool with which you can take any 3D CAD model and publish it to the 3D Warehouse with tags to assist in finding it with Google’s search technology, and links to allow the publisher to direct interested users to another location like a company web site. When you consider Google’s core mission to organize the world’s data and make it universally accessible and useful, this starts to make the 3D Warehouse more interesting. It could be considered an initial element of a foundation for organizing design and engineering data.

Think “Innovator’s Solution” by Clayton Christensen: “Disruptive innovators don’t try to bring better products to established customers in existing markets. They introduce products/services that are “not as good” as currently available products, but they offer other benefits appealing to new or less-demanding customers; benefits such as being easier to use, more convenient, less expensive and so on. Once a foothold is established in new or low-end markets, the improvement cycle starts, and since the pace of technology advancement outstrips customers’ ability to use it, the previously “not-good-enough” technology improves to meet the needs of more demanding customers.”

The foothold is established. The improvement cycle begins. Things are changing.

The Alibre 3D Publisher is essentially an “Add-On” for Alibre Design, our 3D parametric CAD system, which can be had for free as Alibre Design Xpress. In Alibre parlance, Add-Ons are applications that are integrated with Alibre Design using our API. Some applications call this sort of application a plug-ins. A number of other Add-ons are provided with Alibre Design Professional and Expert such as Alibre PhotoRender for photorealistic rendering, Alibre Motion for motion simulation, ALGOR DesignCheck for FEA, and so on. You can see all Alibre Design product configurations and associated Add-Ons here.

The 3D Publisher allows one to efficiently and precisely convert any 3D model from any CAD system to the Google SketchUp format. In addition, the Add-On allows one to simultaneously publish their design to the Google 3D Warehouse. Designs can be modeled natively in Alibre Design or imported via popular industry standard formats like STEP, SAT or IGES. A native SolidWorks reader is also available. Consider the impact of Adobe Acrobat 3D 8.0 coming out soon including direct translators for every major CAD format. The impact of Adobe’s strategy on file interoperability, and it’s potential to break down the huge barriers to change put up by entrenched vendors, is another potentially major market disruption, but that is another story. If you are interested, you can read some about our Adobe announcement .

So in the interest of brevity -- cough, cough -- let me cut to the chase and try to summarize it all and then you can check it out for yourself.

SketchUp is great for some things, it is easy to use, has all sorts of cool visualization tools, and so on. It is ideally suited for conceptual design in architecture and related fields. Alibre Design is focused on mechanical applications, with the features the majority of users need to create precise mechanical designs for production, but light and easy enough for a hobbyist, woodworker or inventor. The application is fully parametric with integrated and associative 2D drawing creation. It’s the real thing, and an ideal compliment to the conceptual direct editing environment of SketchUp. The combination of these two free products creates an amazing combination of tools covering a wide range of design scenarios.

Due the geometric demands of the mechanical market Alibre Design can create geometry that cannot be created by SketchUp, but those models can now be converted to SketchUp for further conceptual design. Consider quickly roughing out fixturing for an imported mechanical design, like a painting stand for this motorcycle frame.

How about quick conceptual designs for packaging, shipping containers or crates, sales displays, storage shelves, enclosures, etc.? Also, due to Alibre’s unique conversion algorithm, models that cannot be natively created in SketchUp can actually be edited in SketchUp, or referenced to create new geometry, like extracting a face to be used in a conceptual model of a new mating part. Granted there are limitations to the editing, you can't edit things in SketchUp that would require modifications to the geometry in a way that SketchUp can't handle. But there are lots of cases where it works.

The beachhead is established. The improvement cycle begins.

Here is a nice example of the 3D Publisher in action. Check out these two images. One is of a model of an ATV submitted in an Alibre Design Xpress design contest. It is hard to believe but the ATV consists of less than 25 unique parts. The other image is of the same model after conversion to SketchUp and publishing to the 3D Warehouse.

Other models created in Alibre Design and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse are available here for download.

You can get the Alibre 3D Publisher for Google SketchUp and Alibre Design Xpress here, or just learn more about them.

The full press release of the announcement is also available here.

The Fastest 3D CAD System in the World…Hasta la Vista Baby!

Ralph Grabowski recently wrote about the impact of Microsoft’s Vista release on 3D CAD applications using OpenGL versus Direct X. From Ralph’s upFront.eZine newsletter Issue #504 from February 3, 2007:

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Wow! Vista Runs CAD (up to) 50x Slower
. . . . .
Bill Gates thinks Vista is "Wow!", and Tom's Hardware thinks so, too. The popular benchmarking site ran the SPECviewperf 9.03 benchmarks on several CAD systes, and found that they slow to a crawl under Vista. Compared with XP, here are the results:

Pro/Engineer = 6.7x slower.
SolidWorks = 9.0x slower.
TeamCenter = 9.1x slower.
UGS NX = 50x slower.
--------------------------------------------

This is big news.

While I am sure the CAD vendors listed above are not so happy with Vista and its impact on their OpenGL-based applications, Alibre thinks Vista is “Wow!” too.

Alibre Design just got an order of magnitude faster than every OpenGL-based CAD application -- and that is essentially all of them! Could it be that Alibre Design is now the fastest 3D CAD system in the world? OK, we'll settle for 9x faster than SolidWorks and 50x faster than UG. Couple that with the most affordable 3D CAD application and you have an unbeatable value proposition.

Now I might be prone to hyperbole from time to time, but the reality is that Alibre has based our graphics pipeline on DirectX/Direct3D from the beginning. At the time we made that choice OpenGL was perceived as the only way to go for a sophisticated 3D graphics application like CAD. It would also be true to say that this thinking has continued up until the present day, probably right up to the launch of Vista. I think I can safely say now that this was the old way of thinking.

Alibre Design runs just as fast on Vista and will continue to improve given Microsoft's and our own ongoing investment in DirectX. I will note that while we have not released our Vista-certified version, it is in the final stages of testing and its release is imminent.

The DirectX/OpenGL debate is really only a small part of the overall shift that is occurring in the CAD market. Since Alibre came on the scene most CAD vendors have also told and continue to tell their customers and the market that you couldn’t possibly make professional 3D CAD accessible to anyone who wanted it. Of course, they don’t say this directly, but they say it much more clearly in their day to day business practices: with the prices they charge, the increasingly esoteric features they focus on release after release that appeal to fewer and fewer people, with customer-hostile forced retirements, with encrypted file formats intended to lock customers in, and on and on. This is also old thinking.

The world is changing quickly, flattening as some have described it. At the same time new economies are growing dramatically with the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, formerly exclusive technologies and business opportunities are becoming accessible to literally anyone. Low-cost hardware, open-source software, offshore development talent, and pay-per-click search engine marketing have rapidly collapsed the up-front cost of starting a company. You can even buy an NC mill from Sherline or Tormach, or even Sears, for as low as a couple of thousand dollars, and low-cost desktop 3D printers under $5,000 are imminent. And, of course, world-class 3D parametric CAD can be had by anyone, starting at free. A whole new group of micro-cap VCs are popping up to fund these new low-cost startups. There is a good post titled “It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur” from a while back by Joe Krause, the founder of JotSpot that was recently acquired by Google, and another by Josh Kopelman, a Managing Partner of First Round Capital, that provides a viewpoint on this trend in a posting called “The New Dual Track”.

Back on the topic of Vista and its effect on 3D CAD applications, all CAD vendors have known the Vista/DirectX issue was coming for much more than a year. Those that are scrambling now were either asleep at the wheel or just didn’t care. Personally, I think it is the latter, as it corresponds to what we've been trying to tell the market for a long time. Microsoft's Vista release and the associated DirectX/OpenGL impact just helped us say it with feeling.

To the vendors listed by Ralph above, as they begin to haggle about who runs the least slowest on Vista, I would simply say, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee!

Hasta la Vista Baby!