Alibre Blog

Alibre’s Price Guarantee Challenges CAD Industry to Make 3D CAD Software Affordable to Businesses and Consumers

Effective immediately, customers are guaranteed to get an “Order of Magnitude” better price on Alibre Design software, versus any comparable 3D CAD program, regardless of the number of seats (licenses) purchased.

In August and September, Alibre demonstrated that the 3D CAD market is bloated, over priced and out of touch with customers.   With our affordable $99 Challenge Offer, we sold thousands of seats, including hundreds of new multi-seat customers and booked record revenue, cash flow, and profits.

Now we are raising the bar, especially against the large, expensive, CAD vendors. We want customers to realize just how much money they can save by using Alibre Design, especially if they have multiple CAD users in their organizations. The process is very simple. Just get a quote - from any vendor selling comparable software and bring that quote to Alibre.

Everyone knows that prices for 3D CAD software are ridiculously expensive, especially in this economy, during the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Vendors such as Dassault Systemes, Autodesk, Siemens, and Parametric Technologies charge $5,000, $10,000, and upwards of $20,000 per seat for products such as Solidworks, Inventor, Solid Edge, Pro/E, NX, and CATIA.

For example, a quote for SolidWorks Standard at www.solidworks.com runs $3,995 for one license and $1,295/year for a maintenance subscription for a total of $5,290. This means a customer will pay only $529 for Alibre Design Standard with maintenance, saving $4,761 over Solidworks. And the savings really add up with multi-seat purchases; 5 seats of Alibre Design cost $2,645 versus $26,450 for Solidworks, a savings of $23,805!

Competitive quotes tailored for individual companies could be even lower than list price due to promotions and other offers. Alibre's Price Guarantee applies to these competing promotional offers as well.

We are encouraging people to do a thorough evaluation of our software versus the competition. Often they will find they can get their jobs done more efficiently using Alibre Design and at a fraction of the price of the alternatives. Now we are also guaranteeing, that no matter what price the quote, no matter how low the other guys go, we will beat them by a factor of 10. It doesn't matter if the quote is for SolidWorks, Inventor, Solid Edge, Pro Engineer, etc. - any quote for any software product that offers comparable functionality will be beaten by a factor of 10.

You might wonder how Alibre can sell professional 3D CAD software at affordable prices. It’s simple, we have a lean, web-oriented, sales, marketing, and distribution structure with all employees located at a central headquarters near Dallas, TX that is complimented by third party resellers in major geography’s. Since we don’t require a direct sales force, geographically distributed premium office space, travel, or client entertainment expenses like our competitors, we can pass on thousands of dollars in savings to customers and still make a reasonable profit.

Before you spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for CAD software you should ask yourself, “Is my money going to pay for support and future software improvements, or just paying the costs of unnecessary overhead?”

It's going to happen, the only question is when. The CAD software industry's monopolistic, anti-competitive practice of offering bloated, overpriced 3D CAD packages will come to an end.

 

 

Whistling Past the Graveyard, Dassault Earnings and the IBM PLM Acquisition

It’s been an interesting couple of days for those that like to watch high-priced CAD software companies. Dassault Systemes surprised everyone with an eleventh-hour announcement happily proclaiming the demise of their decades long exclusive PLM sales agreement with IBM. Only a day later, in an unlikely coincident, came the release of Dassault’s earnings report, which revealed an annual software revenue decline of 12%, based in large part on a 37% fall in new licenses sales, including a 34% decline in Enovia. Enovia plus CATIA are the two primary products sold by IBM for Dassault.

After acknowledging a "challenging" third quarter and cutting its full-year sales guidance, Dassault executives went on to voice optimism for 2010 and call the separation from IBM “a boon to customers.”

Oddly, executives at Siemens and PTC joined the cheerleading chorus by pronouncing the IBM deal a “leveling of the playing field” that would benefit the industry. Somehow, losing IBM as a channel partner is good news for both Dassault and its competitors.

Apparently, skeptics of the “great news” have all been transported to a parallel universe where independent critical analysis still exists, leaving only those analysts and writers behind that readily accept executive pronouncements at face value. I searched in vain for anyone who put these two announcements together. Surely, there must be some linkage between the rushed, last minute IBM announcement and the 37% decline in new license sales.

Dassault is paying IBM $600M to acquire between $450-$600M of annual revenue and approximately 700 IBM employees. Significantly, this marks the first time that Dassault Systems will take direct responsibility for selling any of their own software products. With this comes the responsibility to manage a large direct sales force. The opportunities for failure are huge, but completely unspoken by Dassault and unasked by analysts and the media. Rather than a win-win arrangement we have:

• The Winner. IBM dumps a loss making business that has been crushed by the economy, while also shedding highly paid personnel and overhead costs. A one-time gain of $600M ices their cake nicely.
• The Loser. Dassault Systemes, desperately makes omelets from broken eggs while struggling to rebuild and integrate a collapsing sales channel no longer able to dependably produce a third of its revenue.

Dassault and 700 individual IBM employees are going to have to decide whether they like each other or not. Given the unit’s recent sales performance and Dassault’s emphasis on cost reduction, many of these positions could be on the block. Severance costs could be considerable. Plus, how many dyed in the wool blue suits will eagerly leave their careers at IBM to join a French software developer?

Massive chaos in the ranks seems inevitable, and a culture clash of epic proportions certain, as IBM’s “take no prisoners” sales team moves into the headquarters of technology driven Dassault. Don’t forget, these IBM guys are the same ones that routinely go straight to the top to get anyone standing in their way fired.  Direct sales teams can easily establish cultural dominance in large publicly held companies, as excellent sales execution is required to meet investor expectations.

One of Dassault’s strengths has been its ability to acquire and successfully manage the growth of companies such as Solidworks and Enovia. The key to their success has been the independent management of sales channels, allowing Dassault to remain neutral and avoid product / channel conflict. Companies such as PTC, Autodesk, and Siemens quickly absorb the sales operations of their acquisitions, resulting in sub-optimization of combinations.

How long before clashes between product-aligned organizations, the new direct selling PLM headquarters versus the Solidworks VAR channel, develop over which products should be sold and who should get credit for them?  Will Solidworks become like Solid Edge at Siemens, an increasingly marginalized stepchild of a foreign parent with better loved and better looking offspring?

Alibre $99 Challenge Offer Goes Viral with “Refer-a-Friend” Marketing Program

Alibre’s very popular $99 Challenge offer for Alibre Design Standard V11.2 ended on September 29th, the same day we began shipping Alibre Design Version 12.  

The results exceeded our expectations. We are happy to report that we had record sales and profits in August and September. We added thousands of new customers worldwide, including hundreds of multi-seat business customers. Approximately 40% of new customers were business and 60% individual designers. Unit sales increased by an order of magnitude and lead volume more than doubled. We also received excellent blog and media coverage, with more than a dozen articles including several blogs that discussed the offer more than once. German, Japanese, UK, Australian and other Alibre VAR’s reported similar results.

CAD users apparently haven’t gotten enough though. Every day since September 29th folks are telling us why “they” still deserve to get the $99 offer. We have heard everything from “I didn’t realize it was the 29th already” to the equivalent of “the dog ate my sticky note.”

So to reward our customers, and because we don’t like to turn down business, we are going to authorize existing customers to offer the Alibre Design V11.2 for the $99 price to their friends and associates. Effective immediately, existing customers can authorize up to 10 of their friends or associates to buy V11.2 for only $99 each. Existing customers must use the Alibre “Refer-a-Friend” process to authorize the new referrals. In other words, to qualify for the $99 price, an existing Alibre customer must refer you.

Refer-a-Friend leads are the best ones to get, so we reward customers with free maintenance when their referrals buy. You can get complete details on Alibre’s Refer-a-Friend program and begin inviting others immediately at http://www.alibre.com/company/programs/refer.asp.

Customers that purchase Alibre Design Standard V11.2 for $99 can also upgrade to V12 by purchasing a maintenance agreement for $299. In addition to V12, the $299 maintenance agreement includes one year of telephone and online technical support and rights to any new versions or upgrades released in that 12-month period.

Oh, one more thing, for those lonely folks that don’t know anyone that already owns Alibre Design, or for those that just want to get V12 at the best possible price, we are selling Alibre Design Standard V12 plus maintenance for $398 ($99 + $299) to all comers, through the end of October.

Countdown to Alibre Design Version 12!

Alibre’s $99 Challenge Offer to End September 29, 2009.
Special $99 Pricing Extended to Include Alibre Translate and the Alibre Design Training Bundle.

We are happy to announce that Alibre Design V12 will be available for download and customer purchase on September 29, 2009. This is a great new release featuring many important feature and performance updates. A summary of the enhancements to V12 can be found here. A 40-minute video demonstration of V12 can be found here.

Alibre will also end its very popular $99 Challenge Offer for Alibre Design Standard V11.2 on September 29, 2009.

To celebrate the success of the $99 Challenge Offer and to thank all of our new customers we are extending the $99 special pricing to Alibre Translate and the Alibre Design Training Bundle for the duration of the promotion. 

Alibre Translate normally retails for $499 and extends your import and export capabilities to cover all major CAD formats including:

Import Formats

SolidWorks: 1999 to 2009 (*.sldprt, *.sldasm)
AutoDesk Inventor: v10 to 2009 (*.ipt, *.iam)
Pro/E: 2000 to Wildfire 4 (*.prt, *.xpr, *.asm, *.xas)
SolidEdge: v10 to v20 (*.par, *.psm, *.asm)
Catia: v5 from R10 to R18 (*.CATPart, *.pCATProduct)
Parasolid: v18 (*.x_t, *.x_b, *.xmt_txt, *.xmt_bin)

Export Options

SolidWorks: 2004 (*.sldprt, *.sldasm)
Parasolid: v18 (*.x_t, *.x_b, *.xmt_txt, *.xmt_bin)

The Alibre Design Training Bundle combines our best self-paced training resources for Alibre Design into one low-cost package. The included videos, tutorials, and manuals cover topics ranging from beginner lessons to more advanced concepts, benefiting all Alibre Design skill levels. The training bundle includes:

The 13-hour, 90 lesson video training series
User Guide (PDF version)
The 200 page Alibre Design Exercise Book (PDF version)

Customers that purchase Alibre Design Standard for $99 can upgrade to Version 12 by purchasing a maintenance contract for $299. Maintenance includes all upgrades, enhancements and service packs plus online and telephone technical support for one year. Customers are encouraged to purchase maintenance before v12 is released to ensure they get the lowest maintenance price possible.

Alibre Clarifies Support Options for New Customers

All new Alibre Design customers, including those purchasing Alibre Design Standard for $99, are eligible for “Installation and Getting Started” support during the 30 days immediately following purchase. 

All customers are also encouraged to purchase Maintenance along with their version of Alibre Design, as it provides valuable additional support and software update options. Maintenance prices are $299 for Alibre Design Standard, $349 for Aibre Design Professional, and $399 for Alibre Design Expert.

Customers must be on active maintenance to receive periodic software updates and new version releases. Customers on active maintenance also receive technical support via telephone, email, and the Internet for a period of one year.

Alibre typically releases one major software version update per year and several minor updates. The current release version number is V11.2, which indicates that Alibre Design has been updated twice since the initial release of V11.

Alibre Design V12 is currently in the final stages of development and testing and should be released in several weeks. You can see detailed information about V12 at http://www.alibre.com/v12sneakpeek.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that customers who purchase during the $99 Alibre Design Standard Promotion are eligible for free “Instructor Led” Online Training Seminars and can sign up at https://www.alibre.com/training_support/requestwebinar.aspx. There is no charge for these webinars during their first 30 days.

Alibre $99 Price Offer Stuns the CAD Industry

"There’s a 'new normal' now where people are saving more, consuming less, and being more frugal and thoughtful in their purchases."

Mark Duke, Wal-Mart President and CEO

It may seem a bit unusual for a CAD company to quote the CEO of Wal-Mart, but these are unusual times and Alibre is no ordinary CAD company.

Our $99 offer caught the competition flatfooted and woke up a sleepy CAD industry dozing at the end of a long hot summer.

Customer and industry response has been incredible and the buzz has been extraordinary. All of the major CAD bloggers and several major CAD publications have picked up the story. It has been very interesting to see the CAD blogging community emerge and take on the dual roles of real-time news reporting and independent analysis.

Their headlines pretty much say it all:

Alibre's Ridiculous Offer - Scott Wertel's Harangue

Everything in the Entire World Marked Down to $99… Including Alibre Design – SolidSmack, Josh Mings

Alibre $99 Pricing Sends Shockwave – CAD Insider, Roopinder Tara

$99 for parametric 3D history-based CAD? Now that’s negotiating! – Dezignstuff, Matt Lombard

$99 Alibre Design Standard Opens the Era of Retail MCAD - Maybe - CADCAMNet, Randall Newton

Alibre Slashes Price by 90% - Desktop Engineering, Kenneth Wong

$99: Alibre Drives Down the Cost of MCAD (Temporarily) – WorldCAD Access, Ralph Grabowski

Alibre Design Standard for $99 – Deelip.com, Deelip Menezes
Alibre Makes $99 CAD Offer – Design News, Beth Stackpole

Alibre CEO, J. Paul Grayson, Discusses the New Pricing Structure – Novedge, Franco Folini

Alibre Cuts 3D CAD Price to $99 – Cadalyst Calls on Vendors to Clarify Overall Software Costs – Cadalyst, Nancy Spurling Johnson

Customers are expressing their appreciation by email, phone and with the ultimate compliment, a credit card purchase. As I write, we are scrambling to meet demand and the “Cha-ching” of $99 sales is echoing from our web store into my email inbox.

Many great companies and innovative designers bought in the last week. In many cases, they bought multiple seats or upgraded to Alibre Design Professional or Expert, and bought maintenance, training and other add-ons.

Most opinions are positive, but there is a smattering of negative reaction. The negatives comments seem to fall in three categories:

1. They are desperate; this is the last act before they go out of business.
2. They announced this without forethought, and their reseller partners are against it, because they can’t make money on it either.
3. This is nothing new, low-ball price offers have been tried and failed in the CAD industry before.

We anticipated that people would say that we were desperate. But seriously,  we honed our business model to be profitable giving away free software. How hard can it be for us to make money by charging for it? We are profitable; cash flow positive, debt-free and have been self-funded since 2001.

We started discussing the $99 offer concept about 90 days ago. We held internal discussions, including vigorous debate. Part of that debate included surveying our VAR’s; we have over 100, most of them outside of the United States. We have greater participation from our VAR’s for the $99 offer, than any special offer we ever made.

We are near, or at the bottom of the “Greatest Recession” since The Great Depression, which means that Alibre’s $99 offer comes at the time when it is most needed and the time that it is most appreciated. Customers and companies have become frugal, for the first time they pushing back against the exorbitant prices they have been paying for 3D CAD. 10’s of thousands of customers have delayed new seat purchases or let their maintenance contracts lapse. This may be the best time in the history of CAD software to make such an offer.

No one, least of all the big CAD companies, are publically defending their pricing or refuting Alibre’s ability to get the job done. I bet they are just keeping their mouth’s shut and hoping it goes away.

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at SolidWorks, Autodesk, or PTC’s headquarters. What are they thinking? What about the VAR’s? They must really hate this. I wonder how many have had deals killed when their prospects buy Alibre Design, saving them $3-5K PER SEAT in the process. At a minimum you can bet their prospects are demanding and receiving BIG discounts if they decide to stick with the incumbent.

There was a quote attributed to Bill Gates during the Desktop PC Software wars between Microsoft, Lotus, Wordperfect, and Borland. He was reported to say, “I count every application software dollar that we sell as being worth two dollars, the dollar that Microsoft gets and the dollar that Lotus doesn’t.” Using this math every $99 dollar sale we make is worth $5099 dollars, the $99 we get and the $5000 that the customer gets to keep.

Alibre Challenges CAD Industry to Beat $99 Price Offer

Today we are proud to announce the boldest marketing initiative in the history of 3D CAD - making professional grade 3D CAD software, including parts, assemblies, and drafting, available to anyone for under $100. We are challenging the entire CAD industry to meet or beat this very aggressive $99 single seat price offer.

This is a limited time offer on Alibre Design Standard, which normally retails for $999. Alibre Design Standard is our core technology platform, and it provides a complete parametric toolset for unlimited 3D part and assembly design and 2D drafting. Capable of creating complex mechanical designs with thousands of components, full assembly motion, automatic 2D drawing updates, and many other benefits.

 

The technology is virtually identically to that offered by Autodesk Inventor, Dassault SolidWorks, Siemens Solidedge, and PTC’s Pro/Engineer. And those products normally cost $5,000 and more per seat.

 

This is a very interesting time in the CAD software market, with most customers canceling or delaying new seat purchases because of the economy. These high-price CAD companies have reported 40% or higher declines in new seat sales and have become increasingly dependent on maintenance and services revenue from their existing customers. For example, PTC recently reported that over 80% of the revenue in their most recent quarters is coming from existing customers.

 

In addition, the manufacturing industry has been hit very hard by lay offs, plant closings, and business failures. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing related employees have lost their jobs. In response, both Autodesk and SolidWorks have announced “Stimulus” offers that provide free, but very limited license, educational versions of their design software to unemployed engineers. These licenses do not allow any commercial use and come with other time limit and usage restrictions.

 

Given this backdrop, and what we perceive to be the beginnings of a turn in the market, we have decided to launch a massive “market share grab” directly targeting the largest CAD software companies in their weakest spot, new seat sales of multi-thousand dollar design tools. High-end design tools have been ridiculously expensive for some time, but in this environment companies and individuals have become much more frugal.

 

Hence our $99 offer. This is the full-blown deal that will open up the market in a way that has never been attempted before. Tens of thousands of people are in the same boat right now; they need CAD software but can’t afford multi-thousand dollar software. Many companies have canceled or suspended purchases of new CAD seats to preserve their bottom lines. Manufacturing companies have been hit especially hard and thousands of talented engineers are out of work. Whatever the case, long story short is that people are not buying new seats of $5,000 plus CAD software. Not SolidWorks, not Inventor, not Pro/E or anyone else.

Getting a full 3D CAD license for $99 completely changes the game for these people and completely changes the game for CAD vendors. The best part is people that take advantage of this offer can use this product to make money. And we want them to. That's the point.

Individuals and businesses can learn about the deal at www.alibre.com.

Alibre Design 12.0 Beta now available

It's been a long time in the works! After endless feedback from our user base and months and months of work, Alibre is ready to announce the availability of the public beta for Alibre Design 12.0. If you haven't seen the new features, check out the 40 min. comprehensive video demo located at http://www.alibre.com/v12sneakpeek. The video goes through almost all the new functionality.

The beta is available to any Alibre customer on an active maintenance agreement and can be downloaded after signing a brief NDA.

If you are interested in participating, get started here.

We'll be publicly announcing all this outside the blog in our newsletter on Tuesday, July 14th.

Destructive Creation

The term “Creative Destruction” was coined by Joseph Schumpeter in his book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."

While Schumpeter was focused on innovation and its impact on mainstream companies, the current economic crisis can also be seen as a process of “Destructive Creation”, with destruction coming before creation.               

According to many economists this is not an ordinary downturn, the contraction under way reflects a fundamental restructuring of the American economy. In crucial industries — particularly manufacturing, financial services and retail — many companies are exiting whole areas of business.

Many of the businesses that are failing or being left behind are actually very good businesses that have simply been ruined by greed, poor management, and obsolete business models.

In fact, companies like AIG, Citibank, GM, Chrysler and GE, who represent some of the world’s large conglomerates, arguably existed only because a booming stock market, easy credit and financial derivatives enabled them grow to dominance. These companies may cease to exist but the need for their products and business lines do not.

The collapse of large companies or their exit from “unprofitable” lines of business can lead to a flowering of innovation and company formation as new businesses spring up to take the place of the former monoliths.

Life, death, and rebirth are the endless cycle that defines and confines our world and us. Losing your job or seeing a business fail can feel a lot like the end as you watch everything you have built, your hopes and your plans seemingly dissipate and disappear. When a company closes or shutters divisions, it is the end for that organization, and may also be for employees and business partners.

Life as we know it has changed, whether you are an engineer or a Wall Street tycoon. Anytime there is significant unexpected change, you have insecurity. When there is fear, people naturally hunker down. What is unclear is how much of the slump is cyclical and how much reflects a permanent change in business and consumer behavior.

While we may regret the passing of an Chrysler, or GM, their demise will set the stage for the beginning of a new cycle. Just like the fruit of an apple tree that rots on the ground, fertilizing the seeds contained within, starts a new cycle of life, growth, and production.

Now is the time to shed fear and embrace these troubling times as a great opportunity to put the country and ourselves back on a rational path to prosperity.

21st Century Careers – Back to the Future

“American’s have a peculiar aptitude for mechanical improvements, which along with their spirit of enterprise will someday make the American economy the admiration and envy of the world”
Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures - 1791

Alexander Hamilton almost single-handedly invented the American financial system by persuading the first US Congress to consolidate all state debt into  a single national debt, create a national bank, and issue currency. 

Hamilton believed that manufacturing was the key to the prosperity for the new United States and also recognized the need for a strong financial system to finance and support the expansion of production.

The recent era of financial engineering represented a repudiation of production as the basis for prosperity, substituting consumption in exchange. Hamilton is probably still turning over in his grave, but at least now there are signs of a return to his core principles.

According to an article in the New York Times titled With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King? “A new pattern of occupational choice seems to be emerging. Public service, government, the sciences and even teaching look to be winners, while fewer shiny, young minds are embarking on careers in finance and business consulting.”

University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Enrollment – a leading indicator?
Is student enrollment in UTD’s engineering school a leading indicator of a significant shift in the value frameworks of young adults?

Recently, we had the honor of visiting with the new Dean and several faculty members at the University of Texas – Dallas (UTD) School of Engineering and Computer Science. We were very surprised to learn the Mechanical Engineering Department is their fastest growing department.

UTD’s Mechanical Engineer Department is less than one year old, but already has about 40 students. Enrollments by fall 2010 are projected to nearly quadruple the number of ME students to over 150. By the fall of 2011, enrollment is expected to quadruple again to more than 600.

We met with Dean Mark W. Spong, until recently the Director of the Center for Autonomous Engineering Systems and Robotics at Illinois University. Dean Spong told us UTD is seeing dramatically increased interest in science and engineering, especially Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, and BioEngineering. He attributes much of this to recent economic trends and changes in the psychology of enrolling freshmen. Dean Spong mentioned three fields in which student’s perceive increased career opportunities:

1.    Medical
2.    Energy
3.    Green / Ecological Efficiency

These fields are fertile ground for engineering and science majors and represent global technology markets that require mechanical engineering education and skills. They are also top priorities of the Obama administration and are receiving the greatest amount of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

History as a Lesson for the Future
During The Great Depression, Roosevelt put the nation back to work through the Works Process Administration and the tens of thousands of newly employed Americans that proceeded to build or rebuild countless schools, libraries, railroads, highways, and bridges including the Hoover Dam.

Science and Engineering also led the way during the space race and man’s landing on the moon. In those days, they were glamorous fields that attracted the best and brightest. The innovators of this age went on to create the technologies that define our civilization today.

Science and engineering represent the backbone of the American Dream, with the recent diversion into financial engineering clearly a “bridge to nowhere.” Engineers do interesting and important work, are well-paid and well thought of in their communities and make a difference to people and society as a whole.

That’s Why They Call it Work
During the early 70’s when I was choosing a career, money and stability were important since I already had a wife and baby. I wanted to do something that was also challenging and that would also support my family. I chose Computer Science because it was the closest thing to Robotics offered by my local community college.

I have always believed that you had to do real work, make a real contribution, in order to have a rewarding and secure career. For me real work is hard, it takes a lot of passion, commitment and perseverance, but it is worth it. Real work creates something that is real, something that is valuable and useful to others, that improves their lives by solving real problems or creating new opportunities.

In my experience, the greatest rewards are found in the work when it is done, rather than when it is being done. When you make or build something that has real value to others the rewards from seeing them use it to are much greater than money.