14 September 2004
The Inventor $1500.00 Challenge –
What Needs to Be Done!
‘Not all that smells is Roses’
The current products available in
the MCAD industry in the
main are ‘useful’ products. However by
being ‘useful’ it does not follow that those same products are of value
or that
they will improve companies or user’s productivity and or profitability.
Indeed as we have seen over the last few years, for
many
users of these products, quite the reverse is true, why?
Why? Many reasons but one reason
is that the vendors of 3D
design products have ‘high jacked’ the users market. Some 3D CAD
vendors have
done this specifically to fragment an already diverse market simply to
profit
from the confusion and constant realignment that follows as a result.
The requirements of 3D CAD users
are of little significance
except as Pawns in a much wider and savage game. A
game of market supremacy waged for 'share
holders' not the customers. Indeed it is
often at the customer’s expense that shareholders profit.
Market Supremacy, equates to who
is number one, this equates
to sales and sales equates to marketing, and marketing is played and
judged by
who can spin the best 'tale' about their product(s) to generate more
sales. Selling cars and cornflakes and
political
policies is one thing, selling industrial and design tools is quite
another.
CAD vendors have maintained a
pointless argument about the
relative merits of 2D and or 3D for nigh on thirty years, yep 30 years,
for
Autodesk it has been seven products over eighteen years.
Why? Is it because customers don’t
understand? (That’s what the vendors want you to believe) Is it because
the
vendors don’t understand but aren’t about to admit it?
Look at the vendor’s comments, their product
releases and the marketing that reveals just how little they know about
the
relative merits of 2D and 3D or does it?
The interesting part about this
is that vendors have learned
how to exploit their ‘misunderstanding’ and now actively pursue the
arguments
propagation. Does this mean they have
learned why? It’s hard to tell but in
talking to some of the marketing people at the coal face, they at least
haven’t,
but then why would they be told that would weaken the chain.
And herein lays the smell
(stink); if users continue to buy
products that fail to meet expectations, or provide a genuine
productivity
increase and profitability for all users then we will all be doomed to
more of
the same for many years and the industries we serve will loose in
productivity
and as a direct result, profitability.
Don’t stone the messenger, think
about to whom and how much
you are paying for the tools you earn your salaries and incomes with. Are vendors profitable because they helped or
made you more profitable or just simply because of you.
For most users out there it’s the latter,
many are purchasing 3D software because they feel they ‘have to’ not
because it
improves their lot.
Remember this, every purchasing
decision made has an effect
up and down the supply chain. All the 3D
CAD vendors know and exploit this
situation. Only the users can control to what level that exploitation
takes
place by ensuring they know what they want from these products, and
why, and
more importantly what effect and impact their requirements and
purchasing may
have on others in the chain, and by not sitting on their hands as the
majority
currently do when products do not perform!
Take the 2D/3D argument back CAD
user is ‘What Needs to Done’. The market
is ours not the vendors; the 3D
CAD vendors are suppliers, nothing more and nothing less.
I’ll bet none of you would allow a material
or machine tools supplier to treat you or your companies the way many
allow
software companies to foist un-profitable products into your sites as
if there
exists no alternative.
A senior CAD vendor employee said
to me not that long ago;
‘we own the license we can do what we want whenever we want, it’s none
of your
business’. None of
my business? It’s all of my
business! Take heed everybody this
was a supplier (a CAD vendor not a dealer) talking to a customer (a
user), very
revealing stuff!
‘Not all that smells
is Roses’
Agree or disagree with me I don’t
mind. If you want to know more about me
and why, or
wish to make any comment please just ring or email.
R. Paul Waddington.
Proprietor - cadWest
Phone: 61 2 9724 4305
E-mail:cadwest1@ozemail.com.au
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