NextEngine

Quite an impressive demo if you watched it. I don't know John - coupled with the low cost scanner it seems like pretty good value - I don't know that you could expect that included in the Office Pro version for free necessarily. Surface pull around looked interesting - hope someone from beta reports their general impressions on its usefulness here ;o) Seems like these tools will not only make higher functionality available for less cost but also force some consolidation for people doing it solo or as partnerships into small companies. Nice to have stuff but you can't really justify these just on your own eh?

Haven't heard about Office Ultra - where I can find out more info? Eric

"John Layne" now called Office Professional). SolidWorks have added Office Premium the

Ultra is not available yet Eric. John has let the cat out of the bag there -hope he doesn't get into trouble for that.Has just about everything you always wanted for surfacing and got tired of asking for I am told. I did hear some talk of it being available for early evaluation for those that can't wait for the regular SW update cycle about the beginning of April next year. Should give Alias Studio - (Autodesk) the old hurry up eh? Nothing like competition to drive enhancements along. All this time SW have been working away on some great new surfacing tools and just keeping quiet about it...business as usual,- half arsed implementations, crippled bits,bugs etc limited this and that, and not a word said to users....

ha! I am sorry Eric, it's a joke... I was just making fun :o) John was just sounding off about his purchase of Office Pro and having to pay extra now for new features when he invented 'Ultra' and ####%^!! - things like good surfacing tools and a low number of bugs - he was being sarcastic. I am sorry to pull your leg - I was in a 1st of April frame of mind. Only managed to snare one with my beta07 cancelled post...beware the ides of April... later ;o)

Nice try Neil - trying to protect John's arse from the lawyers , but I thought it was common knowledge that - shhhh "u....a" was coming out later this year ;-)

TTFN

Jonathan

Oh #$%#% I was sure that the U--- specification wasn't in the Non-disclosure agreement.

John Layne

Hi John,

1: At sww both during the demo and on the 1 page flyer that nextengine passed out (the one with the discount sticker on the back) the word 'premium' was never mentioned. If you reread the flyer it says multiple times "....with sw2007 you will be able to....." . This gave a very clear impression that the scanner plugin would simply be part of solidworks, not premium or any other bundle.

Even with the deceitful (wheter intentional or not) marketing of the scanner tools for solidworks I would still be happy to pay for them - Seperately. As far as I'm concerned FEA software is too specialized to be bundled with of all things, a scanner plugin.

Zander

2) What burns me up is the price difference between SW Pro. and SW Prem. is $2500 and the upgrade price is $3500... $1000 for what!!!! Not to mention they are already going to get $2000 a year for subscription fees. I can take the subscription fees (almost), but the upgrade fee thing is too much... And not a peep from SW by the way, and only one email from my VAR asking SW for me now (is this what I pay $1500 a year for - "leverage" and "muscle"!!!)... I sent 3 emails to SW last week! The more I think about this the more PI$$ED I get! Sorry for the rant... I am really "on it" about this!

Aron

possibly it is only really intended to scan foam models and the like into SW for reference for proper construction. if not part of a package deal what do you think it is worth as an add-in?

I'd pay 1000$ for the scanner addin with no increase in yearly support. Sounds fair, but of course I have no idea what the developement costs were. Again, it's being force fed the FEA software with it's highly yearly maintainance that burns me. As well as conveniently not mentioning premium once at the convention.

Zander

Hi Zander,

I couldn't agree more, however if you follow the link to the video "See the Desktop 3d Scanner demo at SolidWorks World" on

John Layne

Ha! - well that's a mere technicality! :) Anyway - the double sided 'coupon' brochure that nextengine had at their booth never mentioned premium. Actually they probably hired a special effects place to do that in post production, right?!

The trouble is I think in the past some add-ins didn't sell that well individually. When SW decided to bundle them it turned out to be good value for users even if they didn't use everything. Including such things as CosmosMotion and the scanner plug-in extends that. IMO overall it is still v.good value but I hear what you are saying about the cost for individuals who really just want a specific capability. May be SW will offer the scanner plug-in separately if you make the price point issue known. Perhaps they should rebundle with consideration to a type of work need - so for instance there is an ID bundle or an analyst's bundle?

I don't know the details of what NextEngine itself allows- perhaps someone else can say. If the plug-in is just a pass between routine on top of what is already available with the scanner then I guess it isn't worth any thing like even $1000 that was mentioned as a stand alone offering. Maybe it should be part of the core product just like a translator is for no cost...