"In my humble opinion MC got big for two reasons, and as far as I have ever seen - two reasons only. A, they flooded the educational market with freebies starting in the late 80's ( brilliantly wise ). And B, everybody and their brother ( AND their cousin ) were passing pirated copies of it, so many shops in the late 80's, 90's, and 00's were using it for free. Certainly NOT because they were "best". MC's tool pathing and linking has never been cutting edge."
"Put it this way - I used MC for something like 12 - 15 years for being forced to or by default. I have the opportunity to use it right now if I want. No thank you. I'll stick with PowerMill. Or NX."
******** autocad got to be number one for the same two reasons. Its a great strategy. Sometimes having access to the software, having lots of people using it, etc... is worth more than the actual power of the product. UG is a great example. Mastercam users are better programmerss than ug programmers from what Ive seen. They have more acces to peers, training, documentation, forums, etc...Id stick with mastercam. Its mainstream, making it the best now for learning. note: if you know it all already ignore my last sentence.