Hey all. It's been a while since I was actively participating around here but had an interesting experience recently that I thought I'd share.
For a little background, I've owned a product development company for nearly 15 years. It's size has scaled over the years along with the economy but there isn't a single industry I haven't done work in and therefore not a major CAD package that I haven't had to learn and become as efficient as possible in. I could quite honestly care less what software I have to design something in. They all pay the same.
With that being said....watching V5 grow and maybe more particularly, Dassault, has been pretty interesting. I've watched it grow, watched it take over and now have begun to watch it fall. It's not a pattern unique to Catia...the CAD world is cyclical and industry driven. But generally speaking in my days there have always been industry leaders...CGS and CV rode the wave, UG rode the wave, Pro/E took it for a little while and then with V5 Catia rose to the top..and it's managed to stay there for a long time. So the pattern isn't unique...but I think the reasons for it are.
Before V5 the manufacturers were pretty much driving the bus and dictating what packages to use. It was different with V5. You saw the suppliers making the move to it before most of the manufacturers did. In a world where you had contractual aggreements with the OEM's dictating the software that you use, suppliers that were running 3 or 4 different packages at the time were deciding to go with V5 as their top gun and translate out into whatever other packages their customers needed data in..regardless of the contracts. It was smart business and quite frankly they should have never let the OEM's lead them down the path of multiple softwares. It was pretty amazing to watch happen. These were huge corporate decisions with millions of dollars on the line for some companies. One by one I watched my customers making the jump to V5.
The grip Catia got on everyone was pretty impressive, albeit confusing. V5 wasn't offering anything that other packages weren't already doing. I had been using all of the big packages by that time and there wasn't anything really 'special' about any of them. Depending on the industry some had some advantages but aside from a few specific examples like 3d mold design or FEA or a few unique commands or special abilities there wasn't much that a supplier could do in one that they couldn't do in another. Most of these suppliers who were currently using Catia were still on V4 so it's not like they were locked into V5 over other high end packages like UG. They were going to have to re-train their V4 users regardless. During this timeframe Ideas was being absorbed into UG so the logical migration for Ideas users was to UG, right? One could easily argue that UG was a much smarter choice for many of these companies, especially those in the aerospace or automotive world who may have already had integrated and possibly customized Teamcenter installations. UG was in fact the only other major player for V5 to contend with. Pro/E had never gotten the market share that it may have deserved (poor and annoying sales effort) and with the parametric modelling similarities between Pro/E and V5 it was pretty easy for Catia to get over the Pro/E hurdle. But when it was all said and done not many companies stayed with UG. None of my customers did. They all went the way of V5. The exodus was so huge that an outsider would have logically assumed that UG was going out of business.
So how did they do it? An amazing sales effort, the likes of which this industry will probably never see again. Customer support was never much of a priority for any of the CAD companies. You paid them money, they forgot about you. The only time they'd call is if you were late on your maintenance payment. Maintenance...that's kind of funny now that I think about it...but that's the way it was...and still is. V5's sales teams took advantage of that. They pounded the pavement. They were relentless with their phone calls and offers of support. They didn't target the users, which had historically been the focus..i.e. manufacturer funded user groups. They targeted the IT guys, the engineering managers, the accountants. They came in with 'creative' solutions for everyone's financial problems and if they didn't have exactly what you needed or if there was a squeeky wheel that needed some grease...they'd take care of it for you! Hybrid design is a great example of this and I'll bring it up again shortly because it's the topic that inspired me to write this.
The 'say yes to everything' and 'please them all' attitude of the sales staff resulted in the overwhelming dominance of the industry. Mission accomplished!....temporarily. As in most cases arrogance accompanied success. The bigger they got, the less effort they put into the happiness of the user. Interfacing with other software's was something they put little or no effort into (Smarteam is a great example here), everything became so modularized to offer lower costs that administration and even sometimes the use, was becoming a mess, and the arguments amongst the users and headaches of the administrator's were beginning to trickle up to those people who decided to make the jump in the first place. Fast forward 10 years and you're seeing companies begin to dump Dassault products that they invested so much time and money into.
I'm not in a position to know the numbers but I can tell you that many of my customers are doing less and less in V5. And just like the reason for going to it in the first place....it's not because of software abilities. It's about attitude. Again, every package has it's ups and downs and spurts of popularity. But this is different. Never before has there been so much debate and argument amongst a software's user base as there is with V5. I honestly don't know the reasons for it but the only thing I could even compare it to would be the current political atmosphere. Perhaps it's due to the methods used to re-train the V4 users compared to the design practices of the users who migrated from other packages. But whatever caused it...it's really quite sad. In the end the whole engineering community suffers.
I've noticed the separation amongst V5 users for years but was recently involved in an experience that really drove home how serious it was. Along with many in the automotive industry, I found myself in a position a couple of years ago that required me to start looking for a stable job. New responsibilities at home didn't mesh well with the peaks and valleys of the contract engineering life...or more specifically the lack of benefits. So I took the best thing available at the time which unfortunately included over an hour drive each way. The position has had me splitting my time between Catia and UG with about 75% of it being complex surfacing and solid modelling of electro-mechanical automotive assemblies in Catia.
As industry in my area is getting back on it's feet, at least temporarily, I've begun looking for opportunities closer to home. I recently had an interview for a designer position at a company in an industry that I have a fair amount of experience in. After sitting for a while with the engineering manager whom I'd developed a decent relationship with over the previous couple of weeks, he called in a couple of his designers for the customary Q&A session. It was going well until the matter of sketches came up and opinions varied...greatly. And then to follow that up the matter of hybrid/non-hybrid came up, again with opposite opinions. Now mind you, neither of these matters were brought up by myself and there were no company standards, these were just individual design preferences. Out of the 3 designers in the room the same person was the minority in both of these debates but that person just happened to be the companies lead designer. Now I don't know if the intent was to hopefully have me be on the side of the lead designer so he could convince the other guy to do it his way or not, but this exchange of preferences and more specifically this lead designer's firm stance, accomplished two things. Number one, it made me look bad in front of an engineering manager who knows nothing about the options or model structure of V5 because I did things differently than his lead designer. This didn't end up being a factor as they still wanted me to come work for them which is in itself credit to their open-mindedness...but unfortunately the 2nd thing the exchange did was totally turn me off from accepting a job. When all was said and done, even if the difference of opinion was only a big deal to me, the fact that the matter even came up during an interview kept me from going to work there. And it's not because of my unwillingness to comply. Again, it all pays the same. At this point in my career I have no desire to be a part of a divided, opinionated design staff in an industry that requires you to be perceptive to new technologies and methodologies just to stay competitive with the global market. A search, even of these forums, will show you examples of the often trivial split amongst the users.
I've never seen more of this software divisiveness than I have with Catia users. This isn't a Catia vs. UG debate or Solidworks vs. the world argument....this is about arguments amongst the users of the same package. An argument that literally results in the opposite sides thinking the other is an idiot and resulting in either side never relying on the other for any form of advice or opinion. You'll always have the adolescent sketcher vs. non-sketcher debate no matter what package you're using but never before have I seen something like hybrid/non-hybrid divide a user base. I've seen the topic argued for the past 10 years within engineering groups I've worked in and with and it's always seemed pretty childish to me. Who cares? If someone likes to have geometric sets with all of their creation geometry in one place....great! If someone likes to have their creation geometry included with their solid body (the main reason most people like hybrid)...that's great too! I've found that you will have a hard time finding someone who doesn't like hybrid explain the reasons why. When asked most of them just have a blank look on their face. You might be able to guess what method I prefer now but the method you prefer is not the point in me writing this
Large companies who have files continually worked on or maintained by different people need to establish a standard, that goes without saying. But the majority of suppliers don't fall into that category. A typical supplier design staff of a dozen or so people in which one designer carries a project or part through it's lifecycle is much better off letting their designers work the way they're comfortable working. If people can't keep their tree organized it's not going to matter what method they use...their models will always be a mess to deal with or make changes to.
So Dassault failed by pleasing all the people...and the users failed...well...because they were given the opportunity to. I failed by spending my afternoon writing this Hybrid or non-hybrid both require 'center graph' to find anything....so for crying out loud get over it.
Have fun!
For a little background, I've owned a product development company for nearly 15 years. It's size has scaled over the years along with the economy but there isn't a single industry I haven't done work in and therefore not a major CAD package that I haven't had to learn and become as efficient as possible in. I could quite honestly care less what software I have to design something in. They all pay the same.
With that being said....watching V5 grow and maybe more particularly, Dassault, has been pretty interesting. I've watched it grow, watched it take over and now have begun to watch it fall. It's not a pattern unique to Catia...the CAD world is cyclical and industry driven. But generally speaking in my days there have always been industry leaders...CGS and CV rode the wave, UG rode the wave, Pro/E took it for a little while and then with V5 Catia rose to the top..and it's managed to stay there for a long time. So the pattern isn't unique...but I think the reasons for it are.
Before V5 the manufacturers were pretty much driving the bus and dictating what packages to use. It was different with V5. You saw the suppliers making the move to it before most of the manufacturers did. In a world where you had contractual aggreements with the OEM's dictating the software that you use, suppliers that were running 3 or 4 different packages at the time were deciding to go with V5 as their top gun and translate out into whatever other packages their customers needed data in..regardless of the contracts. It was smart business and quite frankly they should have never let the OEM's lead them down the path of multiple softwares. It was pretty amazing to watch happen. These were huge corporate decisions with millions of dollars on the line for some companies. One by one I watched my customers making the jump to V5.
The grip Catia got on everyone was pretty impressive, albeit confusing. V5 wasn't offering anything that other packages weren't already doing. I had been using all of the big packages by that time and there wasn't anything really 'special' about any of them. Depending on the industry some had some advantages but aside from a few specific examples like 3d mold design or FEA or a few unique commands or special abilities there wasn't much that a supplier could do in one that they couldn't do in another. Most of these suppliers who were currently using Catia were still on V4 so it's not like they were locked into V5 over other high end packages like UG. They were going to have to re-train their V4 users regardless. During this timeframe Ideas was being absorbed into UG so the logical migration for Ideas users was to UG, right? One could easily argue that UG was a much smarter choice for many of these companies, especially those in the aerospace or automotive world who may have already had integrated and possibly customized Teamcenter installations. UG was in fact the only other major player for V5 to contend with. Pro/E had never gotten the market share that it may have deserved (poor and annoying sales effort) and with the parametric modelling similarities between Pro/E and V5 it was pretty easy for Catia to get over the Pro/E hurdle. But when it was all said and done not many companies stayed with UG. None of my customers did. They all went the way of V5. The exodus was so huge that an outsider would have logically assumed that UG was going out of business.
So how did they do it? An amazing sales effort, the likes of which this industry will probably never see again. Customer support was never much of a priority for any of the CAD companies. You paid them money, they forgot about you. The only time they'd call is if you were late on your maintenance payment. Maintenance...that's kind of funny now that I think about it...but that's the way it was...and still is. V5's sales teams took advantage of that. They pounded the pavement. They were relentless with their phone calls and offers of support. They didn't target the users, which had historically been the focus..i.e. manufacturer funded user groups. They targeted the IT guys, the engineering managers, the accountants. They came in with 'creative' solutions for everyone's financial problems and if they didn't have exactly what you needed or if there was a squeeky wheel that needed some grease...they'd take care of it for you! Hybrid design is a great example of this and I'll bring it up again shortly because it's the topic that inspired me to write this.
The 'say yes to everything' and 'please them all' attitude of the sales staff resulted in the overwhelming dominance of the industry. Mission accomplished!....temporarily. As in most cases arrogance accompanied success. The bigger they got, the less effort they put into the happiness of the user. Interfacing with other software's was something they put little or no effort into (Smarteam is a great example here), everything became so modularized to offer lower costs that administration and even sometimes the use, was becoming a mess, and the arguments amongst the users and headaches of the administrator's were beginning to trickle up to those people who decided to make the jump in the first place. Fast forward 10 years and you're seeing companies begin to dump Dassault products that they invested so much time and money into.
I'm not in a position to know the numbers but I can tell you that many of my customers are doing less and less in V5. And just like the reason for going to it in the first place....it's not because of software abilities. It's about attitude. Again, every package has it's ups and downs and spurts of popularity. But this is different. Never before has there been so much debate and argument amongst a software's user base as there is with V5. I honestly don't know the reasons for it but the only thing I could even compare it to would be the current political atmosphere. Perhaps it's due to the methods used to re-train the V4 users compared to the design practices of the users who migrated from other packages. But whatever caused it...it's really quite sad. In the end the whole engineering community suffers.
I've noticed the separation amongst V5 users for years but was recently involved in an experience that really drove home how serious it was. Along with many in the automotive industry, I found myself in a position a couple of years ago that required me to start looking for a stable job. New responsibilities at home didn't mesh well with the peaks and valleys of the contract engineering life...or more specifically the lack of benefits. So I took the best thing available at the time which unfortunately included over an hour drive each way. The position has had me splitting my time between Catia and UG with about 75% of it being complex surfacing and solid modelling of electro-mechanical automotive assemblies in Catia.
As industry in my area is getting back on it's feet, at least temporarily, I've begun looking for opportunities closer to home. I recently had an interview for a designer position at a company in an industry that I have a fair amount of experience in. After sitting for a while with the engineering manager whom I'd developed a decent relationship with over the previous couple of weeks, he called in a couple of his designers for the customary Q&A session. It was going well until the matter of sketches came up and opinions varied...greatly. And then to follow that up the matter of hybrid/non-hybrid came up, again with opposite opinions. Now mind you, neither of these matters were brought up by myself and there were no company standards, these were just individual design preferences. Out of the 3 designers in the room the same person was the minority in both of these debates but that person just happened to be the companies lead designer. Now I don't know if the intent was to hopefully have me be on the side of the lead designer so he could convince the other guy to do it his way or not, but this exchange of preferences and more specifically this lead designer's firm stance, accomplished two things. Number one, it made me look bad in front of an engineering manager who knows nothing about the options or model structure of V5 because I did things differently than his lead designer. This didn't end up being a factor as they still wanted me to come work for them which is in itself credit to their open-mindedness...but unfortunately the 2nd thing the exchange did was totally turn me off from accepting a job. When all was said and done, even if the difference of opinion was only a big deal to me, the fact that the matter even came up during an interview kept me from going to work there. And it's not because of my unwillingness to comply. Again, it all pays the same. At this point in my career I have no desire to be a part of a divided, opinionated design staff in an industry that requires you to be perceptive to new technologies and methodologies just to stay competitive with the global market. A search, even of these forums, will show you examples of the often trivial split amongst the users.
I've never seen more of this software divisiveness than I have with Catia users. This isn't a Catia vs. UG debate or Solidworks vs. the world argument....this is about arguments amongst the users of the same package. An argument that literally results in the opposite sides thinking the other is an idiot and resulting in either side never relying on the other for any form of advice or opinion. You'll always have the adolescent sketcher vs. non-sketcher debate no matter what package you're using but never before have I seen something like hybrid/non-hybrid divide a user base. I've seen the topic argued for the past 10 years within engineering groups I've worked in and with and it's always seemed pretty childish to me. Who cares? If someone likes to have geometric sets with all of their creation geometry in one place....great! If someone likes to have their creation geometry included with their solid body (the main reason most people like hybrid)...that's great too! I've found that you will have a hard time finding someone who doesn't like hybrid explain the reasons why. When asked most of them just have a blank look on their face. You might be able to guess what method I prefer now but the method you prefer is not the point in me writing this
Large companies who have files continually worked on or maintained by different people need to establish a standard, that goes without saying. But the majority of suppliers don't fall into that category. A typical supplier design staff of a dozen or so people in which one designer carries a project or part through it's lifecycle is much better off letting their designers work the way they're comfortable working. If people can't keep their tree organized it's not going to matter what method they use...their models will always be a mess to deal with or make changes to.
So Dassault failed by pleasing all the people...and the users failed...well...because they were given the opportunity to. I failed by spending my afternoon writing this
Hybrid or non-hybrid both require 'center graph' to find anything....so for crying out loud get over it.Have fun!
