The Difference Of C.E.O.’s

Last week during Solidworks World I wrote about Solidworks C.E.O. Jeff Ray's personal interaction with his companies customers. Today I attended the Pacific Design Show in Anaheim. Among other CAD companies in attendance was Alibre. I had started noticing these little bags of popcorn prominently displayed all around the Autodesk booth:

Upon closer inspection, it was actually a bag with an Alibre logo on it. So off I headed in search of this Alibre. When I found the booth, I found the source of the bags, and decided to see what they had to offer that they felt it right enough to produce such interesting popcorn containers. As I was checking out their demo video, a gentleman walked up and started asking one of the booth attendees about their software. The popcorn, combined with a show special software price of $495, was certainly a draw. Anyhow, back to the guy. Having the benefit of anonymity, I listened in to the conversation and the questions being answered. There was one that really stuck out. The guy asked how it worked. So the guy from Alibre explained it this way. He said that Alibre was different from Solidworks and Inventor in one major way, Alibre was a parametric based system, and the others were not! He explained than in Solidworks and Inventor, you had to draw things to the exact dimension, and in Alibre, you sketched it, and then sized it. So after the guy took his free 30-day demo CD and walked away, I introduced myself to the guy from Alibre. Now this wasn't just any guy, he was Alibre C.E.O. Greg Milliken. So after telling him I was a Solidworks C.S.W.P., User Group Leader, and Blogger, I called him on his comment about Solidworks not being a parametric based system. Needless to say Mr. Milliken was a bit speechless. He tried to explain away his comments to the booth visitor by saying that wasn't what he really meant to say, yet he had said it, and the guy had walked off none the wiser. I next asked him to explain to me what benefits I would see by switching from Solidworks, to Alibre. Choosing his words carefully, he explained that Alibre wasn't meant to target power Solidworks users like myself, but to provide a similar software package for what he called the bottom of the pyramid. He knew he really couldn't slide any more sales pitch stuff my way, so he offered me his business card (just minutes after telling the previous guy he was out of cards), and asked me if I would like a demo CD to play with for 30 days. So I took my CD, and off I went.

The comparison I'm trying to make here is the drastic difference between someone like Jeff Ray, and this guy. While Jeff Ray may be a tiny bit on the stiff side, one thing that is evident is his passion for delivering a product that he can be proud of. He shows that he doesn't need smooth lines, or sales pitches to sell his product. He lets the product speak for itself. This guy from Alibre has obviously only tried to copy what Solidworks does, but he should also take a look at how to create a product that won't require tricky sales lines, or crafty popcorn containers to be successful. So Mr. Milliken if you somehow come across this article, I ask you this: how do you say "Alibre is the future of 3D CAD", and that "The guard is changing" in this blog post, but then tell me your product isn't aimed at a user like me? Maybe Alibre should stick to popcorn bags.

Anyhow, a few more pics from the show:

Where's popcorn? Can you spot the bag in the Autodesk booth?

It looks as if there were two guys at the show who thought Digital Prototyping was a new term from this century!

Comments

[Michael]

You know that New Zealand dollars are not the same as US Dollars, right?

[Matt Lorono]

Funny stuff. I like the nebuluos terms like "real time design" used on their chart on their webpage. Anyone tried designing any other way?

[Darrin]

What has always amused me about the Alibre Competitor Comparison matrix is that they seem to believe things like "3D Parametric Modeling" are simple line item Check Boxes. Worse yet, they believe that that by putting a Check in that box, that makes them equal to SolidWorks, Inventor or ProE.

I'm sorry, but 'we extrude and they extrude so we must be the same' just doesn't cut it.

It won't take you long to realize the difference in Feature Maturity.

Take a simple Extrude for example. In SolidWorks, you can make a single Sketch and Extrude it in 2 different directions with Independent End Conditions and distances. Furthermore, you can even use End Conditions like Up To Surface to map the topologies of other parts, STILL independent in both directions. And I don't mean 'primitive' topologies either. It will map to the most complex imported geometry you can throw at it.

SolidWorks has been doing that for nearly a decade!! This is something that even Inventor still can't do.

This is just one example of the several thousand functions SolidWorks is capable of.

Bottom line, read all the FUD you want. Compare the tools and make your own decision.

Darrin

[Evan Yares]

Roopinder just wrote about this in his blog, so I thought I'd pop in and see the fun.

I probably ought to point out that SolidWorks is, in fact, not parametric.

It's variational.

You can laugh now. It was a joke, get it? No?

Sigh... Truth is, among the CAD CEOs out there, Greg Milliken and Carl Bass both likely know the difference between parametric and variational software. I doubt that Jeff Ray does. But it doesn't really matter, because whether a CAD program uses a variational or parametric solver is a minor technical detail.

In any case, I know Greg. I can't see him making the kind of comment you related. But I wasn't there.

[Mike]

Preston,

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I certainly appreciate your ability to keep the discussion on an adult level with your 'kool-aid' comment. Now to address your concerns, I never once said that Greg Milliken didn't know the difference between parametric, and non parametric. As a CEO of a CAD company, I would expect he would know. As to why Greg chose to make the comments to the guy that he did is anyones guess. The guy he was speaking too had no real idea what 3D CAD was based on his comments he was making. Listening to him speak made it very evident he was an unsuspecting show attendee that just happened upon the Alibre booth, most likely drawn by the free popcorn. As for assaulting anyones character, I think you are stretching a bit. I appreciate your comments, and certainly appreciate you help in increasing my site stats for the day!

[Preston]

First of all, Pete Yodis needs a remedial class in reading comprehension. A second-grader could read the blog he refers to and know that Milliken was not claiming anything, he was quoting someone who was quoting someone else, and it had nothing to do with the message of the blog.

And Mike, how could you possibly believe that Greg Milliken doesn't know that SolidWorks and Inventor are not parametric? And why in the hell would he tell a prospect that, when they are a few steps from the booth of the competitor that he's talking about, where they could prove that worng within ten seconds? Any reasonable analysis of your story comes to the conclusion that you are either completely fabricating it, or somehow believe that's what you heard, and decided to go ahead and believe it and write about, even though it's unbelievable to the point of absurd. As for all you folks that believed it when Mike wrote it, well, you might want to lighten up on the SWx Kool-aid.

Mike, maybe you should stick to blogging about things you know about, instead of assaulting the character of people you don't.

[Bob Jones]

It seems rather dubious that the Alibre CEO would say SolidWorks was not parametric. Every product comparison and matrix between features of Alibre versus others clearly shows Solidworks, Inventor, etc. are all parametric. In fact, their marketing slant is usually that they offer the same parametric power of the competition at 20% of the cost.

http://www.alibre.com/products/mechanical/competitor_comparison.asp is a good example.

[Greg Milliken]

Mike,

Why would you fabricate such a dishonest story? Shame on you, Mike.

-Greg Milliken

[Pete Yodis]

Hi Mike....

Thought I would let you know, he's at it again.... claiming $20,000 a seat for SolidWorks.

http://alibre.typepad.com/alibre_ceo_blog/2008/03/saving-100-peta.html?cid=107390366#comments

[Josh]

dude, that is so awesome and hilarious and awesome.

[Mike]

Brian,

Solidworks was there also. Their booth as usual had the most traffic. I went around and watched the presentations given by them, and Autodesk, and by far the Solidworks one was much more informative about introducing people to the software. The Autodesk presentation was on creating Type-A surfaces in Alias! I dont think there were many Alias users in the audience since most of the people watching had a blank stare on their face afterwards!

[Brian]

Busted! Glad you called him out on that.

Did SolidWorks participate in this show?

Brian
http://www.cadfanatic.com/

[Phil Way]

Excellent Job Mike. It is because of businesses and its management/ownership run in this fashion that other engineering organizations and managers are often sceptical when a truly new and innovative product is offered on the market. Glad to see you addressed the situation that certainly needed attention.

Phil

[Mike]

Devon,

To be a good private investigator, I would need Matt's spy photo taking skills!

[Steve Calvert]

Great article, Mike. That sounds a lot like what I used to hear from PTC guys, you have to do this and you have to do that, blah blah blah. Sales people will say anything to get the sale. Jeff came to Austin a few months back and he seemed to have a good idea of things worked. It is nice to hear that from a CEO.

Steve

[Devon T. Sowell]

Great story Mike!

Have you considered becoming a Private Investigator?

Devon