Today's Webcast

Congrats Jon

Think3 has just about ZERO marketshare worldwide. They have no more US support ( I think they were laid off 2 yrs ago?).... Only thing bringing in any income in is the existing old Eureka base on maintance. Mainly in Itally. It is keeping them afloat. New cusotmers are not even looking at Think3. Sorry that is just reality.

VX.... I am sure its a decent product. Its just that nobody seems to be evaluating, purchacing, or using it.. There is just not a big market for what they are offering... So why does this matter? They cannot re-invest, hire, and grow. The development process is staffled and on life support. Cusotmers users products will wait long and hard for improvements, bug fixes and new enhacements...

Thankfully SW does not takes its business direction from you Jon.

I think FOX news has an opening. They seem to be more than willing to hire people who talk about issues, without worrring about accuracy, context or truth.

Joe

I appreciate your response, but "it's your fault" doesn't cut it.

1. I have not opted out of emails from solidworks (I get lots of mail from them).
2. My browser pastes in the email address the same as it has successfully hundreds of times.
3. I do not have spam filtering enabled at all.
4. I have participated in other solidworks web events.

There are many, many of us that wanted to attend and participate. Many of us, including me, delayed customer meetings (read billable hours) in order to attend this meeting.

The response that I have received from Solidworks by email is that I can listen to the archive of it and there is no current plans to re-run it. They couched that with ...maybe in the fall.

I think Solidworks should admit they dropped this one and reschedule another one soon and try to get it right this time.

-Steve

Joe,

I agree with the others. I haven't opted out or spam filtered the SW messages. This was something I was looking forward to. I don't think that it's just a coincidence that so many of us made the same mistakes.

Matt

),

reasons. We do webcast on a regular basis, and this event was no different logistically. The phone in questions portion was a new option for us. It was something we wanted to try. It everybody was a little too shy to ask questions? There were quite a few attendies. But not a lot of actual questions... So start thinking about it. And next time you run into a tough problem save it... And submit it next time....

more sumited models and issues next time we do it. I thought of the models we recieved, they were informative.

Ok Joe nice to have you visit the wild west, This was my first webcast so I was actually a little shy of saying anything especially with a cold ridden Kiwi accent ...also I was prepared to take a back seat to more esteemed people like Ed himself asking questions...but as it turned out I couldn't connect with the operator anyway come the Q\A time. I thought I would type just a question or two...bound to be one of many many..and patiently wait my turn,,, not necessarily expecting to have mine answered. I was really surprised to find that it seemed as though only Ken and I were asking questions - and I think Ken only managed to get in because I sent him details at the last minute. It was glaringly obvious to me that the questions I just typed were the only ones coming up... and OK you know I couldn't resist some of my humour as well.... I thought the timing was good for a 10000km separation :o) ....but you get to feeling somewhat naked when you realise YOU are the person keeping it going right NOW. Another contributing factor was that I was somewhat non plused by the content because I was expecting to hear more of what makes the surfacing part of the program tick than a quick overview of SWW type stuff so I wasn't sure the questions I had thought about fitted in with the tone/level of the webcast and therefore I didn't ask them. it was a good idea hope we all do better next time

Whoa, Joe, you're back!

I didn't sign up so I can be impartial here not having a stake one way or another.

1. Given the rate of failure of the email getting through either they weren't sent or some of the automation you have croaked on real world data and disregarded customer requests.

1. The reply email had HTML or something else that would get caught in a spam filter at the ISP. Some user's say they didn't have spam filters on but that doesn't cut it because ISPs and other points on the way from SW to the user can be involved. I don't understand why SW can't send such mundane responses in simple 8bit ASCII text.

2. Close the loop and have some kind of response to confirm that the user got the email. Return receipts come to mind.

1. Those that called back to SW looking for help got phone mail Mary treatment. VAR's couldn't help because they weren't in the loop. The only successful workarounds seemed to come from the newgroup. No big surprise there.

Well, have a good Fourth of July. Many of us will be thrashing away at SW2004 during that time.

Pro/E Wildfire 3 has been delayed until spring 2006 so PTC can get more bugs out of the code.

jon banquer wrote in news:da2i07$2d9s$1 @pita.alt.net:

Choke, cough, gag. Nuff said.

You already bored to tears with VD, VX, whatever? I thought you didnt like ProE all that much? What a difference a month makes.

Demo this and report back........

Bing

Joe,

I quote: "So why does this matter? They cannot re-invest, hire, and grow. The development process is staffled and on life support. Cusotmers users products will wait long and hard for improvements, bug fixes and new enhacements... "

Is that why we are still using 2004 in production? We have 2005 and

2006PreRelease but until SW stops stifling performance......

I implement software like I buy 2x4s. If I see a supposedly 10ft long

2x4 in the rack and my tape measure says it is only 9ft 6in it doesn't go on the cart. I have to be able to measure the performance. I don't just go by what is printed on the rack; I use my own tape measure, not the store's. And I won't complain if it is 10ft 6in either.

"jon_banquer" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Thats cause I feel the need to try and keep yer ass in check. It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it. :)

Now, about yer report on the demo I submitted.....

Bing

Bing wrote in news:Xns9687D80D38D68bingersFU2knologynet@199.45.49.11:

As of late I think you have been pretty fair about it. I thought the question about you remembering I have been no big fan of Pro/E was fair and calling me on why do I suddenly think the next release of Pro/E Wildfire is a big deal is certainly very legit. Joe Dunne's comments on think3's marketing are legit as well.... the problem is that think3 has

*much better surfacing software talent* than SolidWork does. think3 also spends a lot more on R&D for surfacing. SolidWorks instead tries to be more Autodesk like and spends a disproportionate amount of their time and money on being more Autodesk like.

I don't agree that the direction that SolidWorks has taken for development for many years now (100 percent focus on Autodesk) is the right direction and I feel it's a big reason why SolidWorks has lost their focus and why the current software doesn't work well at things like top down design. (This according to a regular poster here who you have implied you respect.)

Joe Dunne would argue it's resulted in SolidWorks market domination (I would agree). I would argue that SolidWorks market domination came at a big price, Bing.

SolidWorks marketing focus has had major drawbacks in how SolidWorks performs and is able to deal with many real world situations. Joe Dunne doesn't have the balls to own up to that and neither do most of the product loyalists in this newsgroup. Joe Dunne once admitted in this newsgroup that think3 spent too much money on R&D and felt this would cause think3 to go broke. I don't agree.

IMO, in order for SolidWorks to truly get better at surfacing and solid integration that they need to shift their focus and change their marketing plan. The chances of this happening are between slim and none.

If PTC has done their homework and has learned from their many past mistakes, I do believe that Wildfire 3 can be what SolidWorks isn't. I see a delay in releasing Wildfire 3 as a good move as it needs a lot of work to be as user friendly as SolidWorks. In addition, PTC has an even bigger task than SolidWorks Corp. as PTC writes their own CAM package and my understanding is that the Wildfire UI is still not used in Pro/NC.

Sorry you lost me.

jon

I raised hell with my var and with SWx when I was unable to attend. The final resolution was this: About 3 years ago, I was getting 4-10 "offers" of various cad video cards a week which annoyed me quite a bit.

I "opted out" of one of the more prolific e-mail notices that I was getting. Apparently the opt-out made no deference as to the type of e-mail that was stopped, and all e-mail from solidworks was effected. I notice now that the preferences ( I don't think it did at the time ) allows you to set what type of e-mail you do and do not receive.

on reflection you didn't miss much....certainly not worth the cost of the phone call to the US from NZ on my latest bill... :o( if you have made it to the level of Ed's curvy stuff - and SW owe him a lot for those since they have never come up with something themselves to educate users about how best to use their tools or what's happening under the hood -I don't know that there is much more to know about the present set anyway...you just need to use them in the most creative way to maintain the best continuity you can....and keep it simple... if that's possible. ;o)