Solidworks and Pro/ENGINEER

When you switch user interfaces it is an opportunity to evaluate other solutions. Since you will be in the position of having to relearn how to do your job you have to consider all facets not just what the marketeers want you to see.

1. Will Wildfire read in feature based Pro/E models as well as SolidWorks?

1. Will Wildfire have the large assembly and drawing performance Solidworks has?

2. Will Wildfire be as stable and well supported as Solidworks?

1. Will Wildfire be able to construct the geometry you build as well as SolidWorks?

2. Will Wildfire be as cost effective as SolidWorks when considering training, hardware, productivity and investment?

I cannot answer these questions, but I would suggest you cover these bases when you do your evaluations.

Wildfire will read in older versions of Pro/e parts, assemblies, and drawings. No reason to read in Solidworks files. Can always import step or iges.

Wildfire is faster with large assemblies than Pro/E 2001 and totally blows any version of Solidworks away. Try opening a 10000 piece assembly in Solidworks...

Wildfire 2.0 is very stable. Solidworks 2005 crashes or locks up multiple times a day. Solidworks has always had a problem with crashing in the drawing module.

Wildfire and older versions of Pro/E have always been able to create more complex geometry such as surfaces.

The user interface in Wildfire 2 is just a productive as productive, but it also has the power of Pro/E.

I have been an advocate of Solidworks since 1996, but because of the terrible performance on large assemblies I have dropped Solidworks. With the improved interface in Wildfire 2 there is no reason to even consider Solidworks anymore...