Inventor vs Solidworks - Not the software but the Resellers 1

[cadnutcase]

First I like to say this is a great site, not just the solidworks forum but the whole site in general. I don't post up here much because I can always find the information I need through searches.

(Beginning rant now)
Ok
I am not debating about which software is better here. Lets talk about the resellers and where the two softwares stand today. I just wrapping up an evaluation of Inventor vs Solidworks for our company to go to a 3D parametric program. The solidworks resellers blew the Autodesk resellers out of the water. These guys came in, saw what we do, put together a demo tailored to our needs, answered all our questions, and pretty much put on a great show.

Autodesk brought in a guy from another city, put on a crappy show using files I found in the demo software. Well because of some other things I have been talking some of Autodesk's corporate guys pretty high up in the food chain. It seems that when you mention that you are looking at solidworks, they kind of lay over. They know that they are going to have a tough battle.

This absoultely amazed me. I have been dealing with the local ACAD reseller for years and he is pretty good. But this guy they brought in was pretty much worthless. I think his hands were tied.

I am not kidding when I say this, one of the corporate ADSK guys told me, I shouldn't base my judegment on what solidworks has that inventor doesn't because they are throwing alot of development and money into Inventor right now and those features will be in the next couple of releases. If there wasn't some other people in the room I would have told him to get out right then and there. Come on I need those features now, not 1-2 years from now.

I also think I could have told the solidworks guys to send 14 bellydancers to my office and he would have done it.

(Ending Rant)

A tip for anybody going through this evaluation. Read through all the help forums and see what kind of questions people are asking. Then see what kind of responses are coming back to them. I based alot of my judement on this.

Unfortunately there is a chance we might have to go with Invetor. Doing some more research on it now.

Anybody have any experience getting linking Solidworks to their companies ERP System? I think that if we can get our BOM's into SQL straight from Solidworks we are going to be alright. I don't need Bi-Directional or anything.

 

[ctopher]

I do not like ACAD for various reasons. SolidWorks 2005 comes with DWGEditor so you can open and edit ACAD dwgs. Do a search in this forum, this topic has been discussed before.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
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[MadMango]

Being able to export BOM information to your ERP system depends on the ERP system you have.

[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
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Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Theophilus]

cadnutcase, you seem to be taking great advantage of the information you can find.

I don't know if they've fixed this, but about a year ago I was seeing some posts from people amazed that Inventor often imported AutoDesk files from ACAD (or other) worse than SolidWorks, and some of the reasons people went with Inventor was the presumption that Inventor would work with superior results with their extensive ACAD libraries. Lots of bitterness in those threads.

Consider compatibility issues outside your company as well. Which software company has more seats among customers and vendors in your niche? For the most part, all my customers and vendors have the capacity to use or generate native SolidWorks files now. (I don't know how many seats of SW I've "sold" when presenting my work to a given company's engineering team. "You did THAT since our last meeting?", and other such replies were common.) So I've converted a few myself.

Keep doing this level of homework and your choice will be correct.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[J-C]

The Solidworks programming interface (API) is very easy and powerful. Getting someone to program a function to connect your BOM to your ERP should be quite easy and inexpensive.

What ERP system do you use, there are several 3rd party plug-in available?

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.

 

[TheTick]

I don't post up here much because I can always find the information I need through searches.

For that, cadnutcase I give you a star.

 

[smcadman]

We use Made2Manage as our ERP system, and it ties in with SW and PDMworks.
As far as the DWG Editor, it still has some work to be done on it because it is unstable, it crashes pretty often here. If you have ANY version of ACAD, even R2000, use it as the default DWG editor instead of the SW DWG Editor.

Flores

 

[GBor]

cadnutcase,

I use both. I am a long time autodesk user (ACAD v.6, if you can imagine) and a recent SolidWorks convert. I still have a copy of Mechanical Desktop 4 from Autodesk (Mechanical Desktop merged with Inventor a couple of years ago). I have been able to move seemlessly through SolidWorks with my AutoCAD files. I've moved line drawings and semi-complicated 3-D assemblies/part models back and forth.

If I understand correctly, SolidWorks bought the AutoCAD kernel. Autodesk complained, so I think they had to sell it back, or some such, but in the process, they were able to patent a .dwg creator...my information is a bit sketchy, so someone would need to confirm.

I've had good support from both resellers, so I'm sure this depends on where you are located.

My decision-making factor was my clients. Many of them are or anticipate soon being SolidWorks users. I've been thrilled with the capability since making the switch.

Not sure what cost they quoted, but generally, they both seem competitive, so as I understand it, you get capability at the right price with better support. Any one agree that this sounds like a "no brainer"?

Garland E. Borowski, PE

 

[smcadman]

Not really off topic since we are talking about ACAD compatibility, but SW licensed Intellicad from Cadopia:

http://www.cadopia.com/about_us/news/CADopiaSolidWorks.asp

Flores

 

[Beggar]

To dovetail on the original topic, I had a similar experience:

1) The ADSK guy actually asked me to stop asking questions during his demo -- he just wanted to work through his canned package. I explained that I have experience with older versions of INV, SWX, & SE and that I'm really seeking to understand where INV is now and how well it compares to SWX for what I do. He was visibly miffed.

2) He specifically said that he wasn't there to do a feature-by-feature comparison. Too bad, because that's the only reason I was there.

3) VAR couldn't answer questions put to him later. Finally he admitted that they only had one guy on staff who knew INV.

4) When queried about configurations and a couple other things, they gave me fluff answers that said, "Yes, we have the same functionality - we just call it xxx." Further pressing and specific examples from my daily work finally yielded a "No. It sounds like this may not be the package for you."

5) They refused to provide technical support unless I went through training. Even then, support was limited to a few calls after which they wanted to charge. I got into a big argument with him about this because our SWX VAR has 0600-1800 toll-free tech support and they're very professional.

I was really disappointed because I actually like Inventor, basic though it was when I used it (v. 6). I even went to the ADSK facility in Tualatin for a job interview with the Inventor team and found them to be very sharp and trying very hard.

I was so distressed by the whole demo/VAR process with the ADSK guys that I sent a long letter back to ADSK. I never received a reply.

So, bottom line, nutcase: I hear you...

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