CAD Tech News (#51)

▶ Bentley Systems Pursues Autodesk Customers with License Trade-In Offer

To entice CAD users who prefer perpetual licenses, the infrastructure solutions provider touts promotion that lowers the costs of conversion — and draws ire from Autodesk in the process.

By Cadalyst Staff

As software delivery models evolve, they bring new benefits and downsides for both customers and vendors. Bentley Systems, which is Autodesk's biggest competitor on the AEC side of the CAD market, is currently making the most of what it sees as a prime opportunity to lure away customers dissatisfied with Autodesk's licensing changes.

This year, Autodesk stopped selling perpetual licenses of its software; it has replaced that option with subscription plans, likened to renting a product rather than purchasing it. Customers who already own perpetual licenses can continue to use them, and may stay on their existing maintenance subscription plan if they choose, but new perpetual licenses cannot be purchased.

Bentley is not the only one of Autodesk's competitors seeking to scoop up those users who are resistant to the move to the subscription model: Graebert, for example, has used its perpetual offerings as a selling point, and SOLIDWORKS has been very vocal about retaining the perpetual option, even as it develops cloud-based solutions and rolls out term licenses. Bentley has, however, been aggressive enough in its attacks on the new business model that it has spurred direct rebuttals from Autodesk. Read more »

▶ SOLIDWORKS 2017 Introduces New Modeling Tools, Licensing Options

With the new release, Dassault Systèmes continues its promotion of model-based design, adds a PCB solution, and offers term licenses.

By Cyrena Respini-Irwin

Dassault Systèmes has announced the launch of SOLIDWORKS 2017, the latest annual update to its portfolio of 3D design and engineering solutions for product development. SOLIDWORKS claims more than 3.1 million users worldwide, and 1 million members of MySolidWorks, a community portal launched in 2013.

During the launch event this week, SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi explained his company's choice of the launch theme, "The power you need to drive innovation." Bassi stressed that having "the courage to invent the future" is essential in light of global and marketplace challenges including limited resources, heightened consumer expectations, and the rise of connected objects. "Because we live in a very complex world … we have challenges from all sides," he noted. "The challenges are formidable, [but] innovation is the key to solve all those problems."

To drive innovation, SOLIDWORKS is betting on "platform thinking." Bassi explained: "Today, the most successful companies are in reality a network of connected people, of connected suppliers; a very diverse and different supply chain that can take you to market more rapidly, that can give you more amazing solutions for your design needs." Platform thinking is "natural" and is already happening in the marketplace, he observed, exemplified by such giants as Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

"The platform needs to bring together people, needs to bring together things, because your devices need to be connected," Bassi said. "How do you fast-prototype a connected object so that you can get funding and go to the market in the least possible amount of time? You need a platform that helps you do that in a few clicks. … This is our mission, and it is not far away in the future." Read more »

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Cyrena Respini-Irwin is the editor in chief of Cadalyst.

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