X-CAD Revealed as Alibre Design Xpress

[Anonymous]

Jon,
Could you please submit your complaints as product enhancement requests and leave your negativity at the door. Insulting the CEO does not help to get your enhancement requests implemented. I have actually had some of my enhancement requests implemented so I know that the process Alibre uses works. Of course you really need to be an actual customer in order to have the most effect on getting these implemented. And if you have identified such a great improvement or new product that isn't out there why don't you create your own software and let it compete in the market place? But be sure not to bad mouth your competitors when you do. It only makes you look bad. This is a basic rule learned in intro to business classes available at any local junior college. If you have identified a better product out there you should talk up its good points when possible instead of bad mouthing its competition. Let a product stand on its own without belittling the competitor. Alibre has done this and they are doing pretty well at it. I wish them the best and look forward to some great new product enhancements in the near future. Don't player hate, congratulate!!!

 

[alexy]

Re: Xpress Forum

Greg, you and I both know that my banning, and that of several others, had nothing whatsoever to do with foul language, personal attacks, etc.

You may choose to resolve the issues I and others have raised by burying your head in the sand. But the world is much bigger than your forums, and you need to consider what is being said in areas you don't control.

Two cases in point:

1) The sketchup forum is one that you pointed to from the X-CAD site, as an example of what is being said around the net. The person there who started the thread on X-CAD, and assured the skeptics that it appeared to be legit, has issued an apology to others on the forum for his part in directing them to X-CAD and their subsequent disappointment!

That is not good.
Other commentary there is overwhelmingly negative, not just this one poster.
And none of the negative posters there has posted here, at least that I recognized.
And you can't control what is said there.

2) I heard about X-CAD in a usenet newsgroup. During the initial discussion, one poster, who I will call "Joe" said

All things point to this software being put out by Alibre. As such, it
should be quite capable and about on par with the PTC software you are
familiar with (BTW, it was ProDesktop Express).

Later, when someone expressed concern that it was an email harvesting scheme, Joe said

Not to worry, the company's legit. I, and many people I know have been signed up for weeks. No problem.

I returned to the newsgroup to tell about Design Xpress, and when one person expressed mistrust of any company that would "forget" to mention that it was ad-supported, I defended Alibre (see, we banned folks are not totally evil<g>) pointing out how loyal current customers were. This led to the follwoing reply from Joe:

> Existing customers
> appear to be fiercely loyal,

So are AutoCAD users, Intellicad users, Turbocad users, ProE users, Solidworks users. The list goes on. It is par for the course in the cad world. Doesn't mean much. Alibre, to me, was a pretty strait up company and I had considered their software. After this ad campaign of theirs, they have been dropped from consideration.

Quite a turn-around!
Again, this is not someone who has posted here, at least with a moniker I recognize.
And you cannot ban him from talking with the "many people he knows who have been signed up for weeks".

No question that you have every right to ban me--it's your playground. But pretending that the problem is with only a few malcontents, and can be solved by banning them is no way to resolve the problem, IMHO. Nor is wrapping yourself in a cacoon of customers whose loyalty is so great that they can't even see the issues and who assure you there is no problem. (There is none, for them.)

Integrity is important to a lot of people. And whether the perception is justified or not, a perceived lack of integrity needs to be addressed, not hidden from.

Regards,

Alex

 

[swertel]

Thank you for your concern, alexy. And welcome to the AD forums.

First point. This is the Alibre Design forum for users and potential users of the software. This is not the X-Cad or Xpress forum. Your above post is completely off topic and poor netiquette. By all rights, these are exactly the type of posts that would get deleted by the moderators and administrators. But, since you seem to have valid concerns and questions, it will remain for the time being but will soon be moved into its own thread as it is not on topic for this thread and belongs elsewhere.

Second. I do not know why you were banned from the Xpress forums. But, as you can see from the history of this forum, there are plenty of problems discussed here that deal with problems with Alibre: venting, boasting, bragging, complaining, and most importantly helping each other with all the above. Which brings me to point three.

Third. This is NOT Alibre's forum. This is the members' forum. It is the members who decide what is and is not acceptable. Most of this happens behind the scenes through PM of this board or through phone calls directly to Alibre personnel. No moderation of this board occurs on the whim of an administrator or moderator.

Fourth. Censorship of this board is rare. In the entire history, I've only seen one thread broken up into its own topic (this will make the second). I have only edited one person's post because he used the Lord's name in vain so I removed "God" next to the "darn!" in the sentence. I even left the "darn!" And I have only locked one thread which now appears to be infamous. Notice, it was only locked after members agreed that there was no further direction for it to take. Review all threads in this forum, and you'll see it is the only one.

Fifth. You post appears to be filled with accusation and assumptions. This forum is for factual presentations to help users with the software - along with the needed venting and OT posts that still benefit users. So as a moderator, I have to critically review each post for this type of content. In many respects, this post should be removed, but it does show signs of being beneficial to users and open up a needed dialogue, therefore it will remain. So, before you criticize someone for being banned, and accuse everyone associated with it, perhaps you should review the facts and get the complete picture. A phone call to Alibre seems to be in order.

If you have any more comments, feel free to continue this thread. It shall remain open as long as the comments are constructive. You can also PM me if you want to take this privately.

Thanks,

--Scott

 

[alexy]

Re:

Thank you for your concern, alexy. And welcome to the AD forums.

Thanks, Scott.

First point. This is the Alibre Design forum for users and potential users of the software. This is not the X-Cad or Xpress forum. Your above post is completely off topic and poor netiquette.

Reread this thread, and I think you will get a chuckle out of the irony of that statement. I had encouraged others to take their comments over to the Xpress Forum so that we could have better dialog there. And no comments have been made about the off-topic nature of the rest of this thread about Xpress.

But, since you seem to have valid concerns and questions, it will remain for the time being but will soon be moved into its own thread as it is not on topic for this thread and belongs elsewhere.

Okay, now you have my curiosity up. Did I accidentally post to other than the Xpress thread? I know some other guy started posting about the general direction of Alibre in that thread, but I thought I was on topic. If not, my apologies, and thanks for redirecting it.

Fifth. You post appears to be filled with accusation and assumptions.

I see my post as a mixture of observation (what is being said in the locations that I reported from) and commentary (that nothing I have seen so far addresses that observed negative feeling in the market. Yes, maybe my "head in the sand" comment shows some frustration. So be it.

If you have any more comments, feel free to continue this thread. It shall remain open as long as the comments are constructive.

I've said my piece. I'm not interested in debating whether there really are more people out there with negative opinions than just those who have posted and been banned in the Xpress forum.

 

[swertel]

Yes, I recognize the irony. At the risk of sounding facetious, let me make an allusion to the parts of sentence, mainly subject (noun), action (verb), and direction of action (direct object).

Throughout this thread, Xpress was the subject of the thread. In your post, it was my interpretation that Xpress was more of the direct object and therefore off topic. The subject of your post was more like Alibre's "burying their head in the sand" and how this forum is moderated. The later is a very good topic for this forum because many members don't understand what goes into it and think it's all about "Big Brother." But, since it doesn't follow the subject of Xpress and more closely follows the subject of forum moderation, I thought it necessary to place in its own thread.

Let me elaborate on what I felt were accusations.

burying your head in the sand

Actually, Alibre is doing a lot, it's just behind the scenes and we don't see it. They are definitely not burying their heads in the sand.

But pretending that the problem is with only a few malcontents, and can be solved by banning them is no way to resolve the problem, IMHO. Nor is wrapping yourself in a cacoon of customers whose loyalty is so great that they can't even see the issues and who assure you there is no problem. (There is none, for them.)

I doubt they are pretending it's only a few malcontents. But, those few malcontents were greatly disturbing those who weren't disenchanted by the free giveaway and thus runing their experience. It's not about making 100% of the people happy. It is about making sure current and potential customers stay happy. And there are plenty of issues made by us - the cacoon of loyal customers (I really like that phrase). As a matter of fact, this board is filled with them, but unlike the beginnings of the Xpress forum, we phrase them constructively in a method that lead to a resolution of the problem, not just exacerbate the negativity. Many of us depend on Alibre for our livelyhood and therefore do everything in our power to make it better. If it's better, then we can do more and thus make a better living.

Integrity is important to a lot of people. And whether the perception is justified or not, a perceived lack of integrity needs to be addressed, not hidden from.

Here I felt you accused Alibre of lacking integrity or hiding from the perceived lack. To me, integrity is something earned similar to trust. It takes time by both parties to openly share and built trust and integrity. Xpress may have come off on the wrong foot, but Alibre showed a lot of integrity at its first available moment by offering more features to the first 100,000. Patience is a virtue, even in this fast paced world of instant everything.

Thanks for the comments. If I'm correct about my perceived topic about forum moderation, I'll name the subject line appropriately when/if I break these posts out of this thread. No need to do so if this is a dead issue.

--Scott

 

[alexy]

Re:

The subject of your post was more like Alibre's "burying their head in the sand" and how this forum is moderated.

Not how this forum ws moderated; it was how the Xpress forum was moderated, as were posts 13, 22, 24, 25, 34, 35, and 36 in this thread, as well as all the ones about splitting the forums. However, in a self-fulfilling prophesy, it has morphed ito a discussion of moderating this forum, at least starting with your post. ;-)

Let me elaborate on what I felt were accusations.

burying your head in the sand

Actually, Alibre is doing a lot, it's just behind the scenes and we don't see it. They are definitely not burying their heads in the sand.

I'm not from Missouri, but you'll have to pardon me for pretending like I am. I hope you are right, but will believe it when I see it.

I doubt they are pretending it's only a few malcontents. But, those few malcontents were greatly disturbing those who weren't disenchanted by the free giveaway and thus runing their experience.

I accept that that is your perception. It is not mine. As many others pointed out, it is easy to segregate the posts complaining into a single thread (which was pretty close to the case already). And there has been very little done to "enhance the experience" of those who are asking questions about what will be offered. Exactly what experience is being sullied by the complaints?

Integrity is important to a lot of people. And whether the perception is justified or not, a perceived lack of integrity needs to be addressed, not hidden from.

Here I felt you accused Alibre of lacking integrity or hiding from the perceived lack.

The latter. I took pains in the wording of the sentence to make it clear I was not accusing Alibre of the former.

To me, integrity is something earned similar to trust. It takes time by both parties to openly share and built trust and integrity.

Very similar. And just as trust is a lot easier to lose than to earn, convincing someone you have integrity is much harder than doing something to cause them to question your integrity.

Xpress may have come off on the wrong foot, but Alibre showed a lot of integrity at its first available moment by offering more features to the first 100,000.

Matter of perspective, I guess.
Come off on the wrong foot v. dug themselves a huge hole
showed integrity in sweetening the offer v. took some steps to try to lessen the damage.

 

[jwknecht]

alexy,

You and I have had some PM's outside of the xpress forum. I was surprised to hear that you were banned from the xpress forum. I thought that your latest posts showed that you had done a turn around. In fact, I thought that were actually defending Alibre in your later posts. With that said, we also must keep this forum an Alibre Design (not xpress forum), so please consider this when reading Scott's reply to your post. In fact, now my reply to your reply is off topic. But, I understand if you have been banned from the xpress forum that you can't have the discussion there (ironic).

Anyway, through this post, I would like to ask AD to look into your banning one more time and to please reinstate your access to the xpress forum.

regards,

 

[swertel]

How the Xpress forum was moderated and how this one is moderated should be the same - they follow the same guiding principles set by the owning company and the users. Discussion of the moderating priciples of one will inevitably affect the other (or is that effect?).

I'm under the cynical and skeptical philosophy of "It doesn't happen until it happens" no matter how credible the source may seem. Sometimes, things happen. Based on my history with Alibre, though, their corporate philosophy does not include playing ostrich. We just have to wait and see for sure.

It's not a matter of the experience being tainted by complainers, it's that the users who really want to utilize the forum to better the knowledge and advance the product where scared off, so to speak, because of all the negative traffic. Doubtful those people will ever return and therefore the entire community loses out on the potential benefits those individuals could have offered. Thus, the remaining users experience will be diminished.

As far as your description of perceived lack of integrity, your pros was spot-on. But, this is a public forum with plenty of other users reading and their point of view may be towards the former. I needed to address that audience as well. No insult intended.

In regards to you final comments. Probably a bit of both. Alibre is, afterall, in the business of being in business. But keep hanging out in this forum for a while. Start interacting with Alibre personnel directly either through phone calls, this forum, or the Alibre Assistant and you will see they are a good bunch of folk (that's my Missouri speak) and your perspective will start to wonder towards benefit of the doubt.

Again, welcome.

--Scott

 

[jwknecht]

alexy,

I am confused. I see your name under the members list on the xpress forum. How is it that you have been banned? Can you still post?

 

[alexy]

Re:

alexy,

You and I have had some PM's outside of the xpress forum. I was surprised to hear that you were banned from the xpress forum. I thought that your latest posts showed that you had done a turn around. In fact, I thought that were actually defending Alibre in your later posts.

JW, I think you must be confusing me with someone else. We have never exchanged PMs. And my "progress" has been in the other direction. Until recently, I have been fairly consistent in a strong feeling that the company has set expectations that they should meet, matched with an equally strong feeling that all evidence other than this promotion points to the company being a quality company that cares about its customers.

Anyway, through this post, I would like to ask AD to look into your banning one more time and to please reinstate your access to the xpress forum.

Thanks, and I guess per your subsequent PM that this has been done. But I'll probably take a pass. As I said in the post that got me banned, I've pretty much decided that I shouldn't let the disconnect between what was promised and what we will get taint my enjoyment of what we will get. And once I've taken that step, do I really care about how that disconnect affects my opinion of the company? Not really. So no need to keep posting, particularly when it feels so much like beating my head against a wall.

 

[jwknecht]

alexy,

you are right, I was confusing you with anonther xpress member. I will now use my standard excuse for such a mistake. "I am over 40." Please excuse my brain damage.

I really think you should reconsider anyway. Just hang out for awhile. One thing this old yankee learned from living in the South is to relax, slow down, be patient...

take care,