why so many solidworks users ??

[hankwt]

Solid works - wow alot of users on here . i wonder why - marketing ?? ease of use ?? or is that what the boss bought ??

[dave.laban]

Mostly SW users as this place came in to be after the original official SW forum was shut down and Swym was not deemed an acceptable replacement.

[Frederick_Law]

SW got good salesman.
They sell the boss a dream and worker endless nightmare.

[AlexLachance]

Schools around here are really focusing more on SolidWorks then other programs so that could be a reason.

We use it because most of us knew how to use it unlike most other softwares when we moved from 2D to 3D. Maybe SolidWorks just did a great job in marketing and developping at the moment many companies were switching over from 2D to 3D.

Their product can be top end, but it certainly has flaws that should be adressed first and foremost before trying to shove the platform and cloud down people's throat.

[RichGergely]

Well SolidWorks is the biggest user base of 3D CAD systems available but as mentioned a lot of users here are from the old forum.

Why did SolidWorks become popular, well you have to go back to the late 90s for the massive increase in the user base. A lot of the other venders were shooting themselves in the foot. Pro-E (Creo) tactics were, lets say, interesting at the time for example.

[Arthur NY]

@hankwt I guess my question to you is why or what are you looking to gain more specific information about? Do you think that another software user base should be here or....?

[SteveH]

Expanding on RichGergely's comment:

This is from my foggy memory. Anyone knows better, please correct me.

In the 90's a seat of Pro/Engineer cost around $15k to get started and then there were extra costs for other modules. I don't remember if Pro-E ran on windows at that time. I only ever used it on Sun workstations.

SolidWorks showed up with an initial cost of around $3,900 and ran on Windows. Pro/e eventually lowered their prices to compete but fully integrating into Windows took them a bit longer.

Despite growing pains, at $4k for a perpetual SolidWorks license that ran in an environment (Windows) that most engineers were familiar with, even a small business could afford parametric modeling and didn't need a Unix admin to keep it running.

As an aside, I'm sad to see the perpetual SolidWorks license disappearing.

[Arthur NY]

@SteveH To build upon what you said, yes Pro/E was not able to run on windows for a really long time. They were also VERY arrogant and never thought they'd be knocked off their high horse perch!!! What really set Solidworks up to then eventually become #1 was the reseller channel. While this existed for other packages none were as strong, wide, or deep as what Solidworks put together. This was so amazing, at one point, where there were about 40 - 50 resellers located across the country which meant you got hyper local tech support and training...etc.

But those were the good ole days...........1995 - 2016 Solidworks is still very much the leader as a whole but with the combination of really bad business decisions for example Reseller consolidation, means that there are really only about 10 VAR's left 3 of which are just big conglomerates high on their horse much like PTC was back in the day, the internet being a huge driving force that allows for stiff competition from software like OnShape and Fusion 360, and most importantly the forced practice now where any new licenses of what use to be $4K is now closer to $7K - $8K because you have to buy 3 years of maintenance. Coupled with the fact that they're really shoving 3D Widget Experience down users throats AND it's way overly complicated to even wrap you head around is just pushing users out in more ways than ever.

The way we know Solidworks will probably not really be in existence in about 10 years. It will only be about 3D Widget Experience at that point like it or not. What's funny about this is that this level of arrogance and approach is exactly what knocked PTC - Pro/E off their perch and Dassault is to blind to see it.

[HercalloY]

Its also its name. God am i sick of hearing "SolidWorks" used as the now colloquial "AutoCAD" catch phrase for "anything resembling CAD software". People just can't seem to say anything other then "solidworks" even when you explicitly never say it because you know once you say it once... they'll just keep saying it even more. Even if you tell them a different application name they still always go back to saying "solidworks". Fn annoying as hell for the past 15 years.

[matt]

Solid works - wow alot of users on here . i wonder why - marketing ?? ease of use ?? or is that what the boss bought ??

To answer the question directly, why there are so many SW users HERE in this forum, the guy who started this forum was a former SW user, and brought a bunch of other SW users along with him to help get it started.

BUT, the guy who started it also was a multi-cad believer and was looking to broaden horizons and get out of the SW rut, so he wanted to talk and hear more about other CAD tools as well.

As to why there are so many SW users in general, it started with a great philosophy that people in the '90s could really relate to (independence and the impact of the little guy). It was easy to use, relatively cheap, treated you like a human being mostly, and ran on PC instead of the big workstations from years gone by.

DS now has a different vision, and so there's a bit of a culture war. DS is taking SW back to dependence (on centralized computing - one of the things we rebelled against to begin with) and away from independence, toward corporate consolidation, and away from focus on small operations. This change is of course unpopular with the people who bought into the original SW philosophy.

[jcapriotti]

SolidWorks dropped their forum, didn't replace it, so we all gravitated to Matt's place. If SolidWorks had built a new forum, I think we'd all be there to air our grievances, provided moderation wasn't too harsh.

And no, the 3dx platform is not a forum, its a social media scroll that is inadequate for the task.

[Gerardf]

I'm not sure about SW users on this Forum but if you mean generally then there's probably several reasons.

One of the main reasons I think is the relationship Dassault has with tertiary institutions. My first exposure to SW was at Uni. The student licencing is free so long as you have a Student ID. So, you get exposed very early on and most people will stick with what they know.

Cheers,

G