Since a number of discussions have taken place at length on eng-tips and other fora regarding the future direction of SolidWorks software I thought it would be a good idea to start an FAQ that links to as many discussions of this topic as possible to provide a concise synopsis of the current state of things.
thread560-273105
thread559-302457
thread559-310305
thread559-307028
thread559-269217
thread562-289546
swertel said:
OH NOES KENAT! Why would you switch to SW now with their latest change in management and focus on SW v6 and the CGM/CATIA kernel? It's a very unknown time to switch to Solidworks. You ready to base your entire engineering design library on something so unstable in its current phase?
I too get the impression that the core mechanical design in the current solidworks is taking a back seat to the newer implimentaions of solidworks (If that is what you call it?). I personally don't see live buildings as a good thing for solidworks. It seems more of a distraction from what the solidworks core (mechanical) users are asking for. What's worse is what was shown at SWW 2011 appeared to be CATIA (live buildings) and had nothing to do with SW. This really confuses a lot of us SW users about the direction DS is taking us considering when they showed SWV6 just the year before at SWW 2010. Unfourtunatly the SWV6 is being implimented at such a slow pace I have concerns about it being a viable product. I'm very happy with the existing solidworks (2009 and greater) as it is but I've seen some substatial amounts of bugs creeping up with zero fixes taking place. I just don't like this smoke and mirrors approach that DS is taking with all this.
I recently read Ralph Grabowski's online newsletter #635 that includes an article about OTOY. Ralph reports that OTOY is the technology that was driving SW's server/client demo at SWW2010. http://www.otoy.com is due to be up and running mid March 2010.
My take on all of this is still the same - workstation centric CAD will be around for awhile; network based CAD is emerging and will serve a different market; SW / Dassault is taking a dangerous risk by dilluting the scope of their business focus. I'm intrigued by the prospect of massively parallel computing but I'd be happier if SW put extreme emphasis on making their core mainstream 3D CAD product behave as advertised (i.e. remove the errant functionality).
