Tenlinks today Reported that Autodesk has announced it has sold it's 800,000th seat of Inventor since introducing the product nine years ago. Impressive? Definately, but consider the fact that at the time they launched, they had a HUGE Autocad user base to advertise their new software too.
How many seats of Solidworks are out there? Thats been an unadvertised number for a couple of years. The last official publicly announced number was 450,000 which was announced at Solidworks World in Las Vegas, back in 2006. The number I have heard floating around in the past 3 months is that Solidworks has in the area of 750,000 seats out there.
Yeah, different areas of the world will have more of one or the other. It’s like that here in the US as well. I was just looking at the numbers as a whole.
As for the price I don’t know. Here in the US they are about the same. They both offer discounts but I hear Autodesk has steeper discounts.
We use some Autocad here as well….2d schematics mostly so there is no need to link the 2d and 3d. I do use DWGEditor and it works…..it has its quirks and I would not recommend it for everyday 2d use but for casual drawing and editing it works fine.
If we have revisions, you need to be changing the native 3d model. Quickly editing a 2d dwg and not updating the model is bad practice. I certainly would not be training your students that way as I don’t think most companies will allow it. Those that do are asking for trouble.
Posted by: Jason | August 07, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Jason, I think you have a wrong vision about what i have said. What i mean is you don't have search very hard for inventor user. Thats because almost all the student that learn about drawing and design in Indonesia use Autodesk Product, such as Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, etc.
But, if you looking for a solidwork user, wow... you will find out its very hard in here.
About the price in here .... Solidwork office premium 2008 its about US$12000 but Autodesk Inventor Professional only US$9000. the different between both of it its about US$3000 its equal for Rp27.000.000,- can you imagine that...
About AutoCAD ... Almost all my friend that use Solidwork, they must be have AutoCAD installed in their computer. Thats because Solidwork don't have a software like AutoCAD. Please don't say Dwg Editor. Its not useful at all. Yes Its free but not powerful like AutoCAD. (Or maybe they (my friends)just don't know how to use it(dwg editor))
For you may be don't need a link between 3D software and 2D Software. but for me and all my student, i think we still need it. because what... first lot of company here use AutoCAD. And if there is a revision than i need that link to tech my student how to edit AutoCAD drawing in very fast way... than i need dwg true connect.
Posted by: Wiro | August 07, 2008 at 09:08 AM
So what you're saying is there are a lot of Inventor uses looking but no jobs to be found? Or rather a big pool of unemployed Inventor users that companies can pull from so tey don't have to post jobs?
From what I've heard from users of both IV and SWX, both operate about the same.
Alos, on price, they are about the same.
As for DWG connect....I guess it may come in handy sometimes. But we seldom even use AutoCAD anymore. And for the stuff we do use it on....there is no need to link it.
Posted by: Jason | August 05, 2008 at 09:21 AM
of course they don't have lots of jobs asking for Inventor user. thats because you can get a very qualify user very easy. you don't need to search them very hard. so you don't have to make a job posting to search inventor user.
In Indonesia almost all university, polytechnic or other education institute use AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor in their drawing and design class. I Never heard that SolidWork has been used in University. I don't know why ?
Maybe the price is too expensive, plus they have maintenance fee that is not cheap. can you imagine to install the software we must pay also. Also they don't have dwg true connect (the conection between Inventor and AutoCAD), in Inventor they have bi-directional relationship between inventor and AutoCAD. So the student cannot learn how to connect 3D (inventor) with 2D (AutoCAD).
i admit, there is a lot of User Solidwork In here. But most of them use "not Legal" Software.
Sorry if my language not good enough. I just say what i know in here.
Posted by: wiro | August 02, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Hi Mike!
Sorry for the comment, but I couldn't find a way to contact you, but I'd love to invite you to a private beta of Shapeways.com Please email me if you're interested!
Posted by: Tabitha Smith | July 31, 2008 at 07:23 PM
Those include education numbers well for both Inventor and SolidWorks. Of course.....you can give away a lot of seats and then claim big numbers and claim all sorts of success. I'm sure there is more sketchup seats out there than either IV or SWX.....of course I doubt they make that money on it since its free.
Wanna know how many seats are out there in use? Check Monster, Career builder, or other job sites and see how many jobs are asking for it. That should give you a good ratio. Last I checked....there were 3x as many SolidWorks listing than Inventor. Strange considering that Autodesk claims they have more seats out there.....maybe so....just not in use.
Posted by: Jason | July 31, 2008 at 02:02 PM