OnShape - new CAD from SW founders?

[MikeHenry]

Does anyone here know something about OnShape?

http://www.onshape.com/

It's apparently a new CAD product being developed by a team of 70 with several ex-SW employees involved and they are now running a trial of some sort.

Mike

 

[dwc]

For the moment it looks like MBAs (didn't forget any of this years buzzwords) looking to fish for a mailing list.
Don

 

[MikeHenry]

Well, they do have a public trial/beta/whatever of presumably functioning software running so there are at least some SW developers in the mix. Looks like several members of the "leadership" team were previously at SolidWorks:

http://www.onshape.com/team

They appear to be oriented toward cloud computing and seem to be promoting how that supports collaboration. In any case, there now appear to be at least a couple moderately low-cost 3D CAD players in or about to enter the market that may provide competition for GMD. Hopefully that will mean a more responsive relationship between users and Geomagic/3DS.

Mike

 

[Mibe]

This could be interesting... not "just" SW-employees, but the founders. I guess they got tired of Dassault.

 

[MikeHenry]

This could be interesting... not "just" SW-employees, but the founders. I guess they got tired of Dassault.

Or maybe Dassault got tired of them - there might be an interesting story there.

Mike

 

[bigseb]

They appear to be oriented toward cloud computing and seem to be promoting how that supports collaboration.

No thanks.

 

[Mibe]

It's interesting that Alibre tried to do this 15 years ago, but no one was interested (and internet was not fast enough). Wonder if OnShape will use the Alibre patent?

 

[H-L-Smith]

Or maybe Dassault got tired of them - there might be an interesting story there.

Mike

I suspect you are correct. It may intended for collaboration, but it has to have a strong set of tools available to the individual designers too. I wonder how much of the S/W will live on the Internet and how much (if any) will live on the end-users computer?

Cheers,

 

[Dcrouch9]

It looks to me like they may be taking the same route that Autodesk has with Fusion 360.

 

[MikeHenry]

No thanks <to cloud computing>.

I like having access to my DropBox files from anywhere so that part appeals to me. I do wonder what happens to you if your local connection drops, you decline maintenance or the company goes belly up, however, since it looks like you are running code from the cloud that is not on your PC. Not to mention the issue of transferring all of those CAD files to a local hard disk.

 

[heidtwd]

They appear to be oriented toward cloud computing and seem to be promoting how that supports collaboration.

No thanks.

+1

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

Instability of product lines and companies will always keep my CAD design off the cloud. Not to mention hacking/theft/internet connection troubles. Any company who needs simultaneous multi-user CAD design should probably have their own internal servers running it.

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Instability of product lines and companies will always keep my CAD design off the cloud. Not to mention hacking/theft/internet connection troubles. Any company who needs simultaneous multi-user CAD design should probably have their own internal servers running it.

Absolutely!

 

[bigseb]

If cloud means storing all your files online... well I've never been a fan of that. Not only is it unsafe and contravenes my NDA's its also an extra cost. Not exactly a wise business choice... spending money when you don't need to....

If cloud means the actual computing is done on some remote server and your PC is just a display then I'm definitely against it. I can imagine the chaos when 5000 users are trying to fillet/chamfer/extrude/shell/etc at the same time. Actually I believe Solidworks were exploring that route a few years ago but it turned out to be unviable.

 

[JST]

Instability of product lines and companies will always keep my CAD design off the cloud. Not to mention hacking/theft/internet connection troubles.

And the government shutting them down, and not caring about your files. Happened to folks who had data on one system that ended up being used by the "music-sharing" FOLKS. Got closed down, FEDs were only interested in the evidence, not anyone else.

 

[MikeHenry]

And the government shutting them down, and not caring about your files. Happened to folks who had data on one system that ended up being used by the "music-sharing" FOLKS. Got closed down, FEDs were only interested in the evidence, not anyone else.

There must be a story there. Care to elaborate?

I believe that DropBox mirrors your local storage to the cloud and that seems pretty safe to me. They are probably more diligent about backing up the cloud files than I am with my local files so that's one plus for cloud storage. I do agree that it would be foolish to rely solely on cloud storage for business files. The possibility of the Feds shutting down OnShape cloud storage seems remote to me, though. Are there some subtleties that I'm missing?

Mike

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Mike,

A friend of mind who is a professional syscruncher for an "unnamed government agency" can break into DropBox in about 40 or so minutes. His recommendation is to use it only as a pass-through for your data. If you look around, you will find companies that will allow you to install a hard drive on their server for a nominal fee. (As I get my space on a friend's server, the trade-off is that I machine things for him when he wants.) Hint, many of the local gaming communities maintain such servers where, so long as you supply (and replace at appropriate intervals) the hard drive, the cost is quite nominal ($35/year has been quoted to me).

My own set-up is that I have two 3TB drives on both my own "beast" and my wife's "beast" that back-up data across all four twice a day. I also have two 3TB drives on my friend's server that gets another layer of back-up every third day. About once a month (plus or minus windage) I go through and clean-up the back-ups. The drives (purchased as .99999 reliable over five years) get replaced every third year. Last summer it cost me about $250 to replace the two "three-year old" drives.

 

[MikeHenry]

Lew,

Maybe that's why the DOE facility I work for switched from DropBox to MS Box a year ago or so, though I'd be more worried about MS security than DropBox's just on general principles. Some folks at work (not me!) work on nuclear threat issues so I'd think security would be a serious consideration for them. IAC, I doubt anybody is after my work files, or the personal files, that are located on DropBox. That's not to say others like you should feel the same way, only that for users like me there is a benefit to cloud storage. For me that benefit is invalidated if there is no transparent way to keep the files on the local hard disk but maybe OnShape addresses that issue. Alas, I lack the expertise or interest to set up a system like you have and mostly satisfy myself by periodically backing up to an external hard disk.

Looks like OnShape is being very discrete with details on their product so it will probably be a while before real details are made public.

Mike

 

[DavidJ]

And of course having local copy of the files isn't much help if the software to open the files is actually 'away in the cloud'.

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Maybe that's why the DOE facility I work for switched from DropBox to MS Box a year ago or so, though I'd be more worried about MS security than DropBox's just on general principles.

My "read" on this is that it was more a politically driven than security driven decision. It is kind of like the old saying that, No computing systems manager ever got fired for choosing IBM...