what happened?

[MagneO]

Hello!

I interpret the x-cad ad to mean that they are going to give away a 3-D modeller with no assembly or drafting possibilities. Depending on export options this may or may not be useful. There must be some relatively major limitation here since all 3D CAD programs depend on lots of licensed components, ie cost something to "produce" for the company giving the software away.

I have registered though!

Best Regards

MagneO

 

[swertel]

MilesH:

Because the latest release or two of Parasolid finally allowed for non-contiguous solid blocks. I can make a block located at +X,+y,+Z and another separate block at -X, -Y, -Z. But, if those two blocks were to touch at just an edge or a vertex, not a face, then the solid fails with Parasolid. Likewise, even though the two blocks may not physically touch, they are still "connected." Try deleting the first block using a Parasolid program and the second block will not compute. Do the same thing with ACIS, and the second block will remain.

 

[MilesH]

Re:

MilesH:

Because the latest release or two of Parasolid finally allowed for non-contiguous solid blocks. I can make a block located at +X,+y,+Z and another separate block at -X, -Y, -Z. But, if those two blocks were to touch at just an edge or a vertex, not a face, then the solid fails with Parasolid. Likewise, even though the two blocks may not physically touch, they are still "connected." Try deleting the first block using a Parasolid program and the second block will not compute. Do the same thing with ACIS, and the second block will remain.

Thanks Scott -- All is clear.

 

[moyesboy]

Back to the topic at the begining of the post.

A link to media coverage from the x-cad website
http://www.aecnews.com/news/2005/06/02/1034.aspx

Look for an email messages telling you you have a new private message in the Alibre user forum. Who is it from at alibre dot com?

 

[MagneO]

Hello again,

Perhaps I am a bit slow, but I did't get an e-mail (from Alibre?)

MagneO

 

[KQ]

Nor did I. Couldn't see anything relating to Alibre in the headers either.

For interest in the UK, VX are giving away free copies of VX Mechanical and VX Modeller if you attend a seminar - these are £1200 apps and it is genuine.

VX uses its own kernel.

Several CAD companies have bases in Austin - Ashlar-Vellum being one.

Its quite easy to get hold of free single part modelling software - Solid Edge still do one in the UK. If you push the VARs they will let you have it especially if you seriously look at the full version.

Having said all that I suspect it is Alibre - its their kind of thing.

The problem I have is that if you were considering buying Alibre now, would you not be wise to wait until August to see what happens? So, maybe it is not them after all!

Who knows?

 

[scarr]

Motive is the question here. Where corporations are concerned, profit is the motive and what profit is there in Alibre introducing a competitive product unless they're aming at a market segement either substantially below or above their existing price breaks? Doesn't seem plausible, but then again who am I to judge. Or is this just a way to introduce Alibe under the guise of the X (The Unknown) - CAD program.
Whoever is behind this PR ploy is keeping their identity very hush-hush - a classic marketing ploy - mystery vendor, the promise of free goodies, rumors and inuendos, what better way to generate interest and word of mouth traffic.
I find it all very facinating, and in August we'll all know who it is. Until then (and even after) I'll be more than content to keep using a product of proven ability, unequaled value, reliability, and versatility - Alibre.

 

[moyesboy]

Suppose X-cad is from alibre. X-cad will be an incomplete alibre without associative 2D drawings or assemblies and BOM, otherwise these woulf be mentioned in the description. My guess is that these functions will be a paid for add on to x-cad (that would effectively transform it into an Alibre like product).
Alibre is a very strong 3D modeller, this part of its funbctionality is without doubt competative against other vastly more expensive programs. By playing with x-cad peole might be seeing alibre's strongest feature...

One market for Alibre is customers who are working with 2D and didn't yet move to 3D. Some of them will be attracted by a freebee to play with and will then realise that 3D can save them time and effort. They will then need to invest in a product that will give them the 2D drawings and assembly functions.
The other market is people who have experience of 3D solid with a mid or top market product and so far haven't considered alibre as a serious system because it is so much cheaper. There will be quite a few of these guys who will download x-cad and play with it out of curiosity. If it is alibre they will see that it really is a very good solid modeller and pretty much as good as what they are used to. Some of them might look at alibre alongside their cad system, or start to give their existing cad vendor a really hard time over the price.
The other group of x-cad people are those who might have been sub contracting their design out, or not doing enough design work to justify purchase of a 3D system. If those guys play with x-cad and find that they can do the design themselves or realise they can get value out of a cad system at Alibre pricing...that is another opportunity.

So I can see how Alibre could justify this marketing ploy. We'l lhave to wait and see if it really is alibre, and if the marketing ploy works!

The other question is...
If you were Mr. X-cad, and had control of the registration counter, would you allow the deadline to arrive without the 100,000 total being hit?
:wink:

 

[MilesH]

Quote from the latest press release:

"While admitting that they are trying to bring a "bit of fun" to the CAD market, the spokesperson says that they intend to reveal who they are in the days to come, and want to emphasize that X-CAD is not a demo or a limited-time, trial-only product. Users are assured they will enjoy a depth and breadth of rich features, including "on-the-fly" automatic constraint capture, auto-dimensioning, assembly modeling and more." (My emphasis)

Miles

 

[MagneO]

Hello!

It appears that perhaps Alibre is behind this.

I agree with Moyesboy however, this must be a "teaser" of some kind. There must be a plan to generate sales from this (otherwise it is of course pointless).

It remains to be seen how useful x-cad will be, it might be useful as it is, it might not be.

I will admit to have taken the "bait" though, I talk about this to all sorts of people that I meet!!

Regards,

MagneO

 

[mtauer]

Anybody ever take the time to look at the background graphics on the x-cad website.

Looks alot like the Alibre engine block along with a servo gearhead that is in the gallery on AD's website.

(Yes, I have a little downtime between projects with nothing better to do.)

Mark

 

[thpope]

My guess is this is Alibre.
My guess is that it will be for the modeler only, no 2D stuff, no sheet-metal, no FEA, nothing like that. I think they are following Ironcad's Inovate philosophy.
My guess is they will have at least some exporting (like Step and vrml).
My guess is they know they will reach 100,000 because those that registered are smart enough to register other email addresses 2, 3, 4, or whatever it takes to get there (They only require the email address, so there's no way they can track by real person). So I don't think they plan on "pretending" they got there by lying.
My guess is the product will be sold for <$500, and more likely <$200, after the giveaway. (Which I will also guess they will provide it on CD for something like $15 for S&H.)

I think they knew there would be lots of talk, but I wonder if they thought about how much negative talk there would be. There are going to be a lot of pissed off people once they find out it's legit and they lost out.

I think I will be very happy with my modeler come Aug.

 

[leeave96]

My guess is that Alibre will give away the basic package, V8.2 - w/o support. Shortly after that they will release V9 - which I predict will be a killer upgrade, bringing Alibre much more closer to SW, Inventor and SE. Users of X-Cad will be tempted to upgrade (and spend $$$) by both V9 and the upgrades within V9 - such as Professional and Expert.

Just my guess!

Bill

 

[swertel]

You also have to remember that buying the CAD software gives the company a lump-sum cash increase. Great for those one-time capital investments like new servers and other office supplies.

Software maintenance, on the other hand, is more consistent and can be better budgeted by accounting. It's the maintenance that pays the salaries and covers repeat overhead expenses. Give away a bunch of software but sell them the support and you can budget on hiring a few more programmers to improve your product, thus making a better product, thus selling more seats, thus getting more maintenance, thus repeating the process.

That's my philosophy anyway.

 

[mkent]

I agree that giving away the software is a smart marketing move. I have been watching the Xcad sign up number move and it will not make 100,000. I wonder what they will do? Did they pick 100,000 because they knew it would not be reached and would gather 75,000 good email addresses?

 

[jemmej]

I hate to be picky, but, how do you figure?

Assuming that currently (62,935) it has all of the sign-ups for today (seeing as how its 10:12 a.m. EST I'd say that's plenty conservative) divided by the total number of days its been active (since June 1st, 2005 which is 38 days) gives you 1656 persons registered per day rounded down. Take that number, and the total number of days left excluding today (23) and you arrive at 38,088 additional entries for a grand total of 101,023.

Additionally, there is an internet phenomenon where in these types of registration drives, the rate of registry increases substantially as the cut-off date approaches.

For these reasons, I think it is fairly certain that the 100,000 plateau will be reached.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Jim

 

[thpope]

Plan on a significant surge once they announce who they are.

They will hit 100,000 a week (or more) before Aug. 1 if they announce soon, imo.

The real number of people registering will be less than half of the number of email registrations, imo. I'd guess that it will end up being <30,000. But the email registrations will easily top 100,000. It's just too easy to create free email addy's and register.

But even at less than 30,000, a progam like this can easily exceed 300MB. So downloading will be ridiculous (30,000 X 300MB = 9,000,000MB!!!!). They will probably send out CD's at ~$15 a pop for S&H. This is exactly what PTC did. $15 for a student addition of Pro/E Wildfire for anybody (well, anybody who knew where to look).

This will be the biggest (and most fun) CAD story of the year. Those who speak :twisted: of the offer, are going to feel .

 

[Uman]

Looks like a spamer is mining the web for a new email list.
Could these phrases be applicable?

Too good to be true
You get what you pay for

Just my suspecious thoughts
Jeff in Florida

 

[mkent]

I was wrong in my prediction that the sign up would not reach 100,000. I think they advertised. Now I wonder what will happen to this great forum with 30,000? new freeloaders, many of whom will be teens and younger?

 

[jwknecht]

Re:

I was wrong in my prediction that the sign up would not reach 100,000. I think they advertised. Now I wonder what will happen to this great forum with 30,000? new freeloaders, many of whom will be teens and younger?

Oh $h1t!