On Thu, 2004-10-28 at 20:04, Ken Elliott wrote:
> Brian, you might want to re-read my post. I'm afraid you missed the point.
> "PTC executives boasted to financial analysts that they are advising
> companies to replace $100K/yr American engineers with $20K/yr Indian
> engineers."
> It says PTC is telling their _CUSTOMERS_ to outsource. It's bad enough the
> PTC and other CAD companies outsource, but suggesting to customers that they
> do so is distasteful to me. Thus I referred to this as "crap".
Outsourcing is here. Fighting it does no good. You must reduce the
argument to what outsourcing does work and what does not work. In other
words, you must fight business with business.
Certain types of outsourcing is a risk to business -- especially as you
approach details that are more "client aspects" like support, user
interfaces, business model, accounting features, etc... More in the IT
space, security, ethics, etc... are also key no-nos for outsourcing.
The problem with American businesses is that they tend to only look at 3
year savings and no further. That's why they lock their companies into
Hostageware, finance and other considerations that often result in
businesses failing within 5 years of conception or major change in
direction.
If I can reduce the argument to risk, I can advise companies where risk
is and isn't worth the savings. When it comes to outsourcing,
> "civil engineering application" Hmmm.... That would be inRoads, EaglePoint
> or ArcInfo, right? :-)
> AutoCAD? I'm confused that you would compare the two. Isn't it a bit like
> comparing PageMaker to Word?
Yes. The problem is that when people say "CAD," they only think of
AutoCAD. The "CAD" space is not only beyond that, but you have to also
consider applications in the "CAM" and even "EDA" space as well.
> AutoCAD is easily the best all around drafting package there is.
For 2D, I agree. But _not_ for 3D, the approach is very, very
different.
> It's the Swiss army knife of CAD. It does 3D, but it is not a strength.
Exactly.
> But there are so many plug-ins, you can do almost anything.
Just like MS IE, you can add the capability, but I'd rather use Mozilla
where most of what I need is already built-in. Sure, since MS IE is far
more popular, so there are lots and lots of stuff I can get that I can't
find for Mozilla.
But the reality is that the MS IE + plug-in approach is rather limited,
compared to capabilities inherit to Mozilla. So if you want those
capabilities, you're better off with Mozilla.
I think you pegged this also with the Word Processing (MS Word) v.
Desktop Publishing (PageMaker) comment. The problem is that so many
_only_ known Word Processing, and that's why far too many people don't
even consider DTP -- especially when it is far more applicable to
solving the problem.
Just like the in-house Microsoft support at a Fortune 20 company told my
supervisor, "He shouldn't be using MS Word for this documentation, he
should be using Adobe FrameMaker. Even we use FrameMaker to write our
MS Office documentation."
> Pro/E is a solids modeling system purely focused on mechanical design.
Correct, and far better for 3D aspects. But saying it only does
mechanical design is simply not true. While that _is_ its forte, it is
applicable to aspects of _both_ civil and electrical, where appropriate.
But most people don't realize that. They try to stick with AutoCAD
because that's all they know, and throw add-ons at it when Pro/E might
be a better approach.
> It's like comparing a Jaguar F1 car to a Honda Accord. Totally different
> applications.
No, it's like comparing a pickup to a Semi Tractor Trailer. Sometimes
the pickup will do, and you can throw things in the back, but sometimes
you needed the Tractor Trailer in the first place.
> And just like Jaguar in F1, PTC is getting its but kicked by its
> competitors.
It's not getting its "butt kicked" by competitors. It solves the
problem for CAD/CAM in ways AutoCAD cannot -- especially in 3D space.
Because even Microsoft uses Adobe FrameMaker for things that MS Word
can't do (or does not do well).
AutoCAD is _not_ the end-all, be-all, it is just most popular for most
2D applications. It is severely limited in functionality for more
CAD/CAM applications. And CAD/CAM and EDA are were the "Linux"
deployments are -- largely the mechanical and electrical space. They
are the "CAD" in those environments.
> PTC should be more worried about Catia at the high end and
> SolidWorks at the low end.
And AutoDesk has its competitors as well -- Bentley Systems for one.
They used to have another in IntelliCAD until Visio bought them out.
Then Microsoft bought Visio, resulting in the death of all non-Windows
ports and adoption of VB to replace AutoLisp while IntelliCAD was turned
into a "Shared Source" type project.
[ Ironically there is one licensee, BrisCAD, who makes sure their
IntelliCAD version runs unmodified on the WINE run-time. They state
they will release a native WINELIB version in the future, but I
seriously doubt that because Microsoft would yank their license. ]
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. ... That idea of community rights is firmly rooted in the 'Communist Manifesto.'" -- Michael Badnarik----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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