SOLIDWORKS WORLD CONFERENCE: 2D India Moves Cautiously To 3D

VED NARAYAN "Indian suppliers have to embrace 3D if they want to remain competitive in the global market."

The three days of SolidWorks World Conference in Boston recently, ensured
additional ad revenue to the city’s dailies including Boston Globe and USA
Today. The leading player in 3D CAD/CAM software, Autodesk, and SolidWorks’
competitor, came out with full-page ads in these newspapers with the catchy
line: "What they will not tell you at SolidWorks is that the best-selling
3D software is Autodesk’s Inventor Series."

This was a clear defensive posturing by Autodesk, and SolidWorks CEO, John
MeCeleny, was not amused. Said he, "Competition is feeling threatened by
our popularity. But I did not expect the leading competitor to come out with
something like this!"

Come out with a defensive ad Autodesk did and it was free publicity for
SolidWorks at the cost of competition. Even otherwise, visibility of SolidWorks
is seen to be rising worldwide with the latest annual event being attended by
over 1,200 people including, partners, users and employees.

 Jaan Anderson came from Norway where he said SolidWorks had good sales.
Being a partner of the company, he pointed out that his firm was making good
margins on SolidWorks products.

P Ramesh Chandra, Director, Ranal Software Technologies who distributes
SolidWorks products in India was there too and agreed that partners in India
were happy with SolidWorks as they earned good money selling solutions around
SolidWork’s 3D software.

VISION FOR PARTNERS

From day one, SolidWorks has been selling its products through partners.
John says that through ell-considered policies, the company has demonstrated
time and again the importance of partners in its business plans.

He affirmed that SolidWorks will never over-distribute products because that
tends to harm partners. The company will ensure that right kind of business
practices prevailed among partners to ensure their prosperity. Wherever
required, according to John, the company will provide loans to partners and
charge lowest possible interest rates on these loans.

 The partner-friendly character of the company is affirmed by Mumbai-based
Samir Panshikar, Director, Addonix Technologies who sells SolidWorks software.
Says he, "SolidWorks has technically top-class products and its business
policies are channel-friendly."

‘MAKE IT SIMPLE’

In the meanwhile, SolidWorks developers are working on products based on the
vision of their CEO: ‘Make it simple’. The company has a small product
offering, that includes, SolidWorks Office , SolidWorks Office Professional,
PDMWorks, Cosmos analysis software and 3D-powered catalog tools.

"People may say that we are limited by vision in our product offering.
No, we are not. Our vision is to make it easy for our users," points our
MeCleney. He is not concerned about the small basket of products that SolidWorks
offers. His concern is to make SolidWorks products less technical and
complicated so that they remain as much user-friendly as possible.

Of course, making 3D software easy to use is easier said than done. Says W
Bradley Holtz, President and CEO, Cyon Reseach Corporation who was in Boston to
attend SolidWorks conference, "SolidWorks has thousands of bugs in their
software. They need to fix them up urgently."

 MeCleney admits that there are indeed bugs in SolidWorks software and
the company is committed to fix these as an on-going process. He says that the
bugs come to light because of the close relationship that the company has
maintained with its users and partners over a long period of time.

INDIAN TRANSITION TO 3D

Ved Narayan, Director, Asia Pacific Operations is very confident that Indian
suppliers, whether it be machine tool companies or mold firms or auto part
manufacturers have to increasingly go for 3D software because they are no longer
confined to supply just to the domestic market. He says that a supplier of
Maruti or Telco is no longer looking at a captive but the global market.

 At the global level, designing has already gone to 3D. So, if Indian
manufacturers want to look at exports seriously, they have to equip themselves
with 3D designing infrastructure to gain competitive advantage.

More and more engineers in the country are coming out of institutions with 3D
concepts. On the other hand, if employers still remain at the 2D level, there is
going to be a mismatch which can directly affect the ability to compete at the
global market. Says Narayan, "The younger generation is fully aware of the
3D technology. So, it is a business necessity for Indian firms to quickly shift
to 3D software."

 To cater to the needs of users, SolidWorks has already appointed
partners in cities like Ludhiana, Trichi, Nashik, Goa apart from major
metroplitan cities. In an effort to educate customers about the advantages of
the 3D designing, in September 2003, SolidWorks announced the program called ‘3D
Scales’ which had some 6,000 registrations from India.

SolidWorks is working closely with all the major engineering colleges in
India. It also wants to work with all the polytechnics to ensure every technical
person coming out of colleges becomes well-versed in SolidWorks 3D technology.

The company has already appointed 20 value-added resellers in the country.
Through these resellers, SolidWorks wants to reach out to SMB segment and
support it in A and B-class cities. To empower VARs, the company has establsihed
certification and training programs which are conducted by Solidworks engineers.

SYLVESTER LOBO 

The author was in Boston at the invitation of SolidWorks.