SOLIDWORKS Business Model Changes Coming in July 2023 - here we go again!!

[Dwight]

"uplift in price" is one of the most insulting euphemisms I've seen.

Yes, very much. I'd like to get my hands on the one who came up with that.

Dwight

[mattpeneguy]

Yes, very much. I'd like to get my hands on the one who came up with that.

Dwight

Yeah, that's going to be about as popular as an "uplift in rent"...Once again demonstrating the company's disconnect with their customers...It's almost like they have Onion/Babylon Bee people working there undercover.

Or, as I've stated elsewhere many times, they've got 2 teams over there. One is in charge of making terrible decisions, and the other is in charge of trying to explain away the subsequent mess...In this case it looks like team 1 was in charge of not only making the terrible mess, but also the messaging.

[RichGergely]

Yes, very much. I'd like to get my hands on the one who came up with that.

Dwight

I'm wondering with this blackmail incentive just how many will be using the 'uplift' of the middle finger at Solidworks

[Frederick_Law]

I'm wondering with this blackmail incentive just how many will be using the 'uplift' of the middle finger at Solidworks

Solidworks officially became Ransonware.

[Damo]

Another problem with this is in education.
I spoke yesterday to a couple of college teachers and of course they know nothing about all of this. They don't know what is 3DEXPERIENCE and why a new panel keeps asking the user to connect to this obscure thing.
They chose to teach SolidWorks to their industrial design students because most companies that employs them are on SolidWorks.
When they finish their scholarship this may have changed and they are not aware at all. Teachers have no contact to a VAR and probably never receive communications from SolidWorks?

Hmmmm. That is disturbing.
But because I do sometimes like to be a little contrary.
(It helps me see both sides of any argument and often enables a new light to shine in the darkness of my mind.)
I will approach this a little differently.
Although I definitely can see why it would be a benefit to have solidworks representatives dealing with educational institiutions in regards to engineering students getting a good head start to the software in it most modern form, there's very likely no $$$ motivation for it.
Students don't buy the software. Why would dassault concern themselves with the effectiveness of an educational facility.?
(After all, is it not the job of the school board to ensure a viable curriculum.)
We know they really only market to businessmen, marketing types and corporations.
Meh.. I am generally quite displeased with dassault and the latest direction of solidworks marketing and service on the whole.
None of this really surprises me anymore. But yes, aside form the odd conscientious var who is genuinely doing good work, I do see bugger all reason why they would involve themselves with schools.
(Naive question maybe, but, do drug companies over there in USA get involved in doctor/medical training..??
What about equipment manufacturers of things like MRI machines..?)


All that said...

I think I'll begin a campaign in the area to push for more than one CAD in the curriculum...

...this is indeed a just and noble cause to get behind. I wish you well.

[Damo]

Solidworks officially became Ransonware.

Sadly, this is an apt metaphor.

I'm wondering with this blackmail incentive just how many will be using the 'uplift' of the middle finger at Solidworks

.
I wonder if there won't be a notable 'uplift' in piracy.. That would be a very big middle finger up.

They have taken so much away:..
Home Licences.
Flexible and affordable updating. (Read: extortionate backdating fees.)
Draftsight. Which was offered to us as a free option to incorporate 2D legacy data.
I read somewhere they're discontinuing Photoworks.? (I may have misunderstood this.?)
A very useful forum we all enjoyed. (Tho we would not have this great work of Matt's now if they had not.)
And now the latest refusal to update any seats more than 3years behind.

What have they offered of genuine utility.
A less secure, experimental, overhyped bloatware that makes all our previous investments in hardware and software purchases a waste.
A clunky and unintuitive twitterfeed SWAMP. (I really don't enjoy that..)
Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this..

[mp3-250]

SW does not even care to update their BOGUS scripts inside PDM, or even the sensor inside SW are bugged and cannot be used out of the box since 2021 as they FAIL to do proper calculations.
We were DAMAGED by SW so called updates more than once.
I have to debug THEIR software to make it work and still it does not work 100%...

they do not even care to properly compile the software for asian languages, and SOMETIMES some component fails to run properly showing garbage characters etc (edrawings export to name one)

what a joke

[Peter De Vlieger]

Saw a presentation by my VAR about it all yesterday.
*facepalm* I didn't expect much but it was even worse than I had expected.
If I had played Bourbon-Bingo for marketing lingo and managerial platitudes I would have to had my stomach pumped.
Not blaming my VAR, they have to do what SW tells them to and no doubt are getting instructed about the so called benefits of it all and what the talking point are.

It was a 50+ minute presentation. The first 17 minutes or so where spend on the magnificent concept of 3Dexperience and why we need it. The last 20 minutes or so where spend on stuff that at best is only interesting for some very niche groups such as certain managers that blow lots of hot air before they saunter of to play the back nine on the company dime. Stuff like how with 3DX you can even set up a virtual production line to test if it would go smoothly or where the bottle necks are. In short things that us actual designers in Solidworks have little to no interest in because we have enough issues as there is with trying to get their product to work as it should or try to understand the crap show that are their new improved websites.

The rest of the time, between the marketing intro and marketing outro, was about the reason of the presentation and was so filled with generalities that as an actual potential user you were left with more questions than you had before.

The biggest surprise was that in future there will be 3 tiers in service contracts instead of 1. The difference being mostly if not entirely related to the cloud thing.
E.G. :
In the lowest level they'll 'give' you the possibility to up- and download to the cloud.
-this is of the same level as seeing in specs of a car that it comes with a rear view mirror because let's be honest here, being able to connect to the cloud is the least you could expect for a cloud service

In the middle tier they'll let you have your company data be on a separate 'server'.
-euh ? Doesn't this sound as if in the lower tier your data is just stored on a server that is accessible by any other user of any other company? Or at the very least that if your are not middle tier you'll have to share bandwidth to the server with every other Tom, Richard and Harriet. Have you seen how slow access is to the 3DX website? Doesn't bode well.

In the highest tier you pay for NDA of your data.
- no sugar honey ice tea ! Am I the only one that thinks that in other words, in the lower tiers your company sensitive data is not protected and Solidworks/Dassault can use it without even a 'by your leave' !. Are they <expletive deleted> serious ?!
I'm kind of curious how that will fly in the EU.

On the one hand they were mentioning that you could buy for access when you needed but on the other hand, all new contract will automatically have their price increased because of the cloud. And by the way, new licenses HAVE to get 2 years subscription.
So yeah, paying for stuff you might not be interested in of ever using and if you are a company that is in trouble they are going to be considerate and do a refund when needed for the stuff you aren't going to use...... I'm joking of course, because SW is laughing all the way to the bank.

[Glenn Schroeder]

. . . Although I definitely can see why it would be a benefit to have solidworks representatives dealing with educational institiutions in regards to engineering students getting a good head start to the software in it most modern form, there's very likely no $$$ motivation for it.
Students don't buy the software. Why would dassault concern themselves with the effectiveness of an educational facility.?
(After all, is it not the job of the school board to ensure a viable curriculum.)
We know they really only market to businessmen, marketing types and corporations.
Meh.. I am generally quite displeased with dassault and the latest direction of solidworks marketing and service on the whole.
None of this really surprises me anymore. But yes, aside form the odd conscientious var who is genuinely doing good work, I do see bugger all reason why they would involve themselves with schools.
(Naive question maybe, but, do drug companies over there in USA get involved in doctor/medical training..??
What about equipment manufacturers of things like MRI machines..?)


All that said...

...this is indeed a just and noble cause to get behind. I wish you well.

I'd think it would benefit them financially because students who learn to use a particular software may some day be in a position to decide which one to buy. Many people will gravitate toward something they're familiar with.

[RichGergely]

I'd think it would benefit them financially because students who learn to use a particular software may some day be in a position to decide which one to buy. Many people will gravitate toward something they're familiar with.

Trouble is most 'young people' are pretty tech savvy and by any stretch of the imagination the 3D experience platform is not slick .

I would think the biggest question a 'young person' may have is why do you have to pay so much money for this when I have lots of experience of free platforms that are far slicker.

[nevillew]

Yes, very much. I'd like to get my hands on the one who came up with that.

I doubt it would have been formulated by any one individual, more likely a PR committee.

Saw a presentation by my VAR about it all yesterday.*facepalm*
The biggest surprise was that in future there will be 3 tiers in service contracts instead of 1.
........................
In the highest tier you pay for NDA of your data.
- no sugar honey ice tea ! Am I the only one that thinks that in other words, in the lower tiers your company sensitive data is not protected and Solidworks/Dassault can use it without even a 'by your leave' !. Are they <expletive deleted> serious ?!
I'm kind of curious how that will fly in the EU.

This is stunning ....

• in it's implied security of your data or lack of and
  That they can rat thru' thru files at will

As I said before ... I would characterise it as soft extortion, or just plain out and out blackmail, or dribble coming from what is now a company run by PR exec's who would be better off transitioning their core business to political lobbying - take your pick!

The thing that stuck in my throat, about 2 months before being told 'perpetual' means you cannot upgrade, I was sent an email from SnotWorks VAR that
"A SolidWorks Perpetual licence is way more cost-effect compared to Subscription based licence.
You still have the opportunity to update to the latest version."
Its about the same level of BS as Putin calling his war a "limited security operation"

[doobes]

Frankly, SolidWorks AKA Dassault Systemes' has never understood the academic model. AutoDesk gave every university who asked as many seats of Inventor as they wanted, with plenty to share with students. My son has an edu license.

Years ago a friend who was the Dean of the school of Engineering asked me to help him get acesss to SolidWorks for the school. They were using some no name 3D CAD system who author had gone out of business.

I contacted the folks I knew at SolidWorks, and they slope shouldered the whole thing onto the local VAR, MLC CAD.

MLC CAD quoted them $250/seat/year. When told about the Autodesk offer, they shrugged their shoulders.

Guess what they adopted....

[jcapriotti]

Frankly, SolidWorks AKA Dassault Systemes' has never understood the academic model. AutoDesk gave every university who asked as many seats of Inventor as they wanted, with plenty to share with students. My son has an edu license.

I'd say they have been following the old way. When I was in school (mid 90s), I had to pay for a student version of Autocad,...forget the cost.....I saw a reference online around 2000 that is was $279. I think they started giving them to students free because SolidWorks was dominating the 3d market and they needed to get a foothold with Inventor. SolidWorks student was always $99 from what I recall, which undercut Autodesk years ago. I guess they never felt they had to go the free route since they had a significant market share. Autodesk got lazy and SolidWorks ate their lunch........now we'll see if the same happens to swx.

[dave.laban]

Well my VAR have put a figure on the "price uplift" at £350/yr for the new licenses with all the Cloud services attached. They acknowledged my concern of no affect to existing licenses "at this time" meaning "at a later time" but he genuinely had no further information.

If you get a new license with the Cloud services there's no way of completely removing / disabling it, but there is an activation step that you can just not do in order to avoid exposing any of your data to it. Which I guess is something at least.

[Glenn Schroeder]

Frankly, SolidWorks AKA Dassault Systemes' has never understood the academic model. AutoDesk gave every university who asked as many seats of Inventor as they wanted, with plenty to share with students. My son has an edu license.

Years ago a friend who was the Dean of the school of Engineering asked me to help him get acesss to SolidWorks for the school. They were using some no name 3D CAD system who author had gone out of business.

I contacted the folks I knew at SolidWorks, and they slope shouldered the whole thing onto the local VAR, MLC CAD.

MLC CAD quoted them $250/seat/year. When told about the Autodesk offer, they shrugged their shoulders.

Guess what they adopted....

If it happens again you might reach out to GoEngineer. We switched to them from MLC Cad a few years ago when we discovered there's a license type intended for research that's the same as the commercial software, but considerably less expensive. I can't remember the name of it.

MLC Cad (who I had otherwise been very pleased with) didn't know anything about it.

[Ryan-3DS]

Frankly, SolidWorks AKA Dassault Systemes' has never understood the academic model. AutoDesk gave every university who asked as many seats of Inventor as they wanted, with plenty to share with students. My son has an edu license.

Years ago a friend who was the Dean of the school of Engineering asked me to help him get acesss to SolidWorks for the school. They were using some no name 3D CAD system who author had gone out of business.

I contacted the folks I knew at SolidWorks, and they slope shouldered the whole thing onto the local VAR, MLC CAD.

MLC CAD quoted them $250/seat/year. When told about the Autodesk offer, they shrugged their shoulders.

Guess what they adopted....

Most people don't realize that to work in the academic world you have to go thru an accreditation process for courses. It can take a year or so to do this step.
When it comes to edu licensing, it is difficult to find a company that is willing to support the edu customer- because there is NO money for anyone to pay for the support. Combine that with the long lead time for course accreditation and you can see why there is not a lot of interest.
Autodesk saturated the edu system early on. Then they paid the price with 1,000s of seats of pirated software all over the globe. Which then led to the last 10 years of court battles. Annual subscriptions were set up to curtail pirated software.

But if you are interested in academic licenses you can check out this site. https://www.solidworks.com/solution/academia

[doobes]

Most people don't realize that to work in the academic world you have to go thru an accreditation process for courses. It can take a year or so to do this step.
When it comes to edu licensing, it is difficult to find a company that is willing to support the edu customer- because there is NO money for anyone to pay for the support. Combine that with the long lead time for course accreditation and you can see why there is not a lot of interest.
Autodesk saturated the edu system early on. Then they paid the price with 1,000s of seats of pirated software all over the globe. Which then led to the last 10 years of court battles. Annual subscriptions were set up to curtail pirated software.

But if you are interested in academic licenses you can check out this site. https://www.solidworks.com/solution/academia

LOL!

Reading skills are fundamental.

"Years ago".....

Based upon the fact that I can't even get into my account at SolidWorks today, the likelihood of me recommending SolidWorks to anyone at this juncture is minimal/nonexistent.

I've been a user since '95. Yep. I knew some of the early players. I could name names if you would like. I was a VAR for a short period of time. I introduced the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry to SolidWorks. Seriously.

At one time I was a very vocal proponent of SolidWorks.

That was, however, in the past.

The repeated abuse that has been heaped upon me as a single user by DSS has eliminated that. Lets look at just some of the love:

1) Deprecating the free DraftSight without any notice so that I could at least go buy a stand alone version. That one was very egregious.
2) Eliminating the 2 machine activation. I've got a desktop and a laptop. I can no longer easily use both in my design activities.
3) Eliminating the online license support tools. See #2

I've paid subscription fee's out of my personal checkbook for over 20 years.

Congratulations to DSS for disenfranchising a very long term customer.

I hope it works out for you.....

[Frank_Oostendorp]

Autodesk saturated the edu system early on. Then they paid the price with 1,000s of seats of pirated software all over the globe.https://www.solidworks.com/solution/academia

But I am sure you know there are a couple of 100,000s seats of SolidWorks without subscription still running all over the globe? Old perpetual versions, new cracked versions, Cloned Systems, etc.

[Frederick_Law]

Annual subscriptions were set up to curtail pirated software.

Like any pirate carry about subscription.

Lesson.
Microsoft Genuine License check only locked out Genuine License users.
Not a single pirated copy was affected because it's removed in pirated copies.

All copy protections means nothing. Once it's cracked, it stay cracked. It'll run forever.

[RichGergely]

The biggest problem with pirate software (especially now days) is the potential for something rather nasty hidden in the download.

[Frederick_Law]

The biggest problem with pirate software (especially now days) is the potential for something rather nasty hidden in the download.

There are only a few place the nasty can hide.
Usually nasty are not in the download because it's too easy to get caught
They're downloaded during install.

The above are info from a "Pirate Software Research Facility", I've no experience with such "Pirate Software"

[RichGergely]

I'm getting offered pretty well zero discount if I renew before July, I have 16 months of backdated renewal costs on top of it.

Here is the crazy thing, if I take out a term license instead, at the moment over 3 years they are offering 50% discount! Of course at the end of the 3 years I would not own that license. Though I would still have the one I own now at the end of the period - 2022 sp1.

[KennyG]

I'm getting offered pretty well zero discount if I renew before July, I have 16 months of backdated renewal costs on top of it.

Here is the crazy thing, if I take out a term license instead, at the moment over 3 years they are offering 50% discount! Of course at the end of the 3 years I would not own that license. Though I would still have the one I own now at the end of the period - 2022 sp1.

Surprising. Usually, vendors offer a perpetual license trade-in to get that discount on term. Seems the entire software industry is trying to replace perpetual licenses with term subscription. Some just quite offering maintenance on perpetual altogether so you don't even have a choice...

[jcapriotti]

It's called bait and switch. Happened with TV streaming services and some other software. They give discounts to get you to subscribe, then they start raising the prices. At least with TV it's fairly easy to drop services and move to others. Software almost always locks you in and makes it as painful as possible to leave.

[Damo]

It's called bait and switch. Happened with TV streaming services and some other software. They give discounts to get you to subscribe, then they start raising the prices. At least with TV it's fairly easy to drop services and move to others. Software almost always locks you in and makes it as painful as possible to leave.

Yup..

At least with other pay as you go services, (think: insurance, utilities, tel-com services, etc.) we have the option of switching providers reasonably easy.
This helps to keep them all fairly competitive and reasonably honest. Nor do we need to swap out our entire internal infrastructure to do so..

I am very disappointed at the whole thing too.
It would be a very large undertaking indeed to switch out to a new software now. And very hard to sell the idea to my employers..
I can hear them now..
"What do you mean we must now re-draw EVERYTHING in this new software you say we'll need to pay thou$and$, just to lease..
We already have software for which we paid thou$and$, that YOU recommended, and we actually purchased..!!!"

[Damo]

LOL!

Reading skills are fundamental.

"Years ago".....

Based upon the fact that I can't even get into my account at SolidWorks today, the likelihood of me recommending SolidWorks to anyone at this juncture is minimal/nonexistent.

I've been a user since '95. Yep. I knew some of the early players. I could name names if you would like. I was a VAR for a short period of time. I introduced the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry to SolidWorks. Seriously.

At one time I was a very vocal proponent of SolidWorks.

That was, however, in the past.

The repeated abuse that has been heaped upon me as a single user by DSS has eliminated that. Lets look at just some of the love:

1) Deprecating the free DraftSight without any notice so that I could at least go buy a stand alone version. That one was very egregious.
2) Eliminating the 2 machine activation. I've got a desktop and a laptop. I can no longer easily use both in my design activities.
3) Eliminating the online license support tools. See #2

I've paid subscription fee's out of my personal checkbook for over 20 years.

Congratulations to DSS for disenfranchising a very long term customer.

I hope it works out for you.....

Wow..

You are an old salt indeed. That is harsh mate. It hurts to feel betrayed by one you loved and supported.

[Glenn Schroeder]

LOL!

Reading skills are fundamental.

"Years ago".....

Based upon the fact that I can't even get into my account at SolidWorks today, the likelihood of me recommending SolidWorks to anyone at this juncture is minimal/nonexistent.

I've been a user since '95. Yep. I knew some of the early players. I could name names if you would like. I was a VAR for a short period of time. I introduced the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry to SolidWorks. Seriously.

At one time I was a very vocal proponent of SolidWorks.

That was, however, in the past.

The repeated abuse that has been heaped upon me as a single user by DSS has eliminated that. Lets look at just some of the love:

1) Deprecating the free DraftSight without any notice so that I could at least go buy a stand alone version. That one was very egregious.
2) Eliminating the 2 machine activation. I've got a desktop and a laptop. I can no longer easily use both in my design activities.
3) Eliminating the online license support tools. See #2

I've paid subscription fee's out of my personal checkbook for over 20 years.

Congratulations to DSS for disenfranchising a very long term customer.

I hope it works out for you.....

You skipped one, that to me was the most underhanded.

4) Removing the option for off subscription customers to get back in by paying $500.00 instead of paying for all previous versions of the software.

If they wanted to make that change for new customers I wouldn't have blinked an eye, but while I'm sure doing it to existing customers was legal, it was unethical.

[RichGergely]

Well after getting the quote from my VAR with the high discount on a term license but no available discount on renewing my existing license I rang up a small VAR.

The smaller VAR is offering a nice discount on my existing license renewal (which apparently wasn't possible at my old VAR).

No doubt my existing VAR will be ringing this week when they find out with a new offer but it too late.

[Frederick_Law]

One more small VAR gonna get eaten by a bigger one.

[Damo]

One more small VAR gonna get eaten by a bigger one.

This happens a lot I'm sure. It happened to our original VAR. They really were a great (small) bunch of guys n gals.
I did my training with them and they were super helpful. We had a great relationship for a few years.
They also truly put the VALUE in Var.. Sadly they were bought out by another firm, somewhat larger, and none of the former staff came along for the transition. Aaaaand the service began to decline, the prices soon increased. This was for another few years.
Now they have been bought out by a multinational behemoth with its fingers in several softwares and SaaS pies,
This is a monopolistic, impersonal, monolithic abomination.
Suffice to say, the last several years have been rather frustrating with reseller changes, price gouging and lacklustre service.

[RichGergely]

Oddly there seems to be a few more companies in the UK recently selling Solidworks. I'm wondering if the large VAR's maybe got to fat and overheads are making them less competitive.

[jcapriotti]

This is corporate capitalism 101. Eventually multiple businesses get goggled up into large companies to increase profit margins until there are just 3-4 large companies and anti-trust laws kick in to prevent further monopolization. Good for shareholders usually but leads to less quality for customers over time.

[SPerman]

There was a time when keeping the customer happy was the objective. If you did that successfully, the stock price took care of itself.

[bnemec]

There was a time when keeping the customer happy was the objective. If you did that successfully, the stock price took care of itself.

That is still going on in many markets, just not at solidworks any more (seems to be a trend in software tech right now). It's a normal business lifecycle, been going on for centuries.

[Damo]

My reseller wants $$$ from us to renew our old seat before the june cut-off occurs. And so I've been presented with some information..

They informed us of the "Business Model Change".
(Names have been obscured to protect the innocent, me..!)

"Since we had a detailed discussion on the status of licenses which have been out of active maintenance services for a while. To support our customers, ..[REDACTED]..has managed to secure a massive End of Financial Year incentive program from Dassault. This is your chance to harness the full power of your SOLIDWORKS solution at unbeatable prices.

Please be informed that Dassault has made some important business model changes from July2023, some major highlights of this change involve:
• All the existing SOLIDWORKS CAD Desktop licenses with an expired maintenance before June 2021 (i.e., more than 2 years), will no longer be able to renew the perpetual licenses. They would have to migrate to the rental yearly subscription agreement for the latest version or buy a new CAD seat with below changes.
• All new perpetual licenses of the desktop portfolio will require two years of Subscription.
• Starting in July 2023, all new purchases of SOLIDWORKS Desktop CAD licenses will also include Cloud Services as part of the Subscription.
• New subscription and term licenses of SOLIDWORKS Desktop CAD products, will experience an uplift in price.
Please review the official statement by the Vice President of Dassault Systemes and some FAQs to understand the upcoming changes:

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworks ... -2023.html
https://www.solidworks.com/lp/open-new- ... 3d-designs (scroll to bottom of the page)

Some of you may be aware I do not think very highly of our reseller (I refuse to call them a VAR).
But they are offering us some supposedly huge EOFY deals.
Here’s what on the offer this month:
• Existing License Renewal:
Every business has different needs and cashflows, keeping this in mind, we have tailored the purchase plans supporting your business.
-Plan A: Pay Upfront and save instantly.
-Plan B: Split your payment to 12-36 months interest free terms.
• New License:
Last chance to get SOLIDWORKS at minimum ongoing cost, without adding cloud tools and uplift in price.
-New team member added? Get a SOLIDWORKS License with FREE 5 days classroom Training or 12 months self-paced training tutorials.
-Need 2 or more? Get Bundle offers at unbeatable prices.
-Have a fixed term project? Get the latest SOLIDWORKS with interest free payment terms.
-Need help with Validating your designs? Take advantage of our FEA+CAD bundle offers to maximise the incentives.
-Struggling with project CAD data and manual repetitive jobs? Automate your workflows with massive discounts on implementation services.
• SOLIDWORKS Training Courses:
-Need to upskill your team? Receive up to 30% off our SolidWorks Face to face/Virtual Training courses.
-Don’t have time for consecutive days classroom training? Get 12-months access to the self-paced learning portal with more than 1000 video tutorials covering every topic of SOLIDWORKS.
Offer Validity till– Friday 23rd June 2023.

Naturally, I had questions.. To which I did get some answers.. (For those of you who may also have similar questions..)

Hi Damien,

Thanks for your message, I understand you may have more questions than the below, I would suggest a phone/teams meeting to address your concerns related to the upcoming change. Anyways, I have tried to answer what you’ve covered in the email, please let me know if you’re available to have a 15-20 mins teams meeting as well.
So, this means our old version will never be able to update.! But will it ever actually stop working..?
No, your license agreement was perpetual, you could still use the same version forever, but you can’t renew to the perpetual license arrangement anymore for latest versions. You need to bring your seat on active subs before 30th June for that.
- How much will yearly rental cost.?
There are two types of rental arrangement, currently they are all under massive EOFY specials. I will share a separate email with the rental yearly/ 3 years costs in both arrangements.
- Will we have support and update options while we pay SaaS fees..? (Or will there be separate maintenance costs.?)
The maintenance is always included with the subscription agreement, so there is no additional cost.
- If we were to add a new team member and they have a cloud base license, will he/she be able to use our existing desktop based files.?
Yes, the existing desktop and cloud SOLIDWORKS are exactly same in usage, even the cloud Solidworks is installed in a local machine, yet connected to cloud. The cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version, so yes, the new user will be able to open existing SW files in cloud SW
- Will that change our files so I cannot use them in our desktop version.?
As I wrote above, it won’t change your files, it will be same format as desktop.
- Can files created in Desktop be used on the cloud.? Yes
- Can cloud created files be downloaded and open/edit on desktop Solidworks.? Yes
- Are our cloud files secure on your server with standard/basic version.? Yes,
the data security of cloud is same for all levels of licenses. The cloud security is the main attraction cloud based licensing, it follows the ISO standard of security (majority of the big companies like Microsoft, uber etc uses the same data security standard), I have also attached a doc on this for your reference. (PS.. There is as yet, no Doc..)
- Are our files stored on the cloud or the local machine.? Is there an option for either.?
The recommendation is to save on cloud, so that you could do project-based collaboration and get flexible access of your files remotely. But, if you like to save them locally, you certainly could.
- What happens to our files/proprietary data, and our access to them, if we stop our SaaS fees.?
Subscription licenses stop working when you stop paying for it, if you decide to stop using it at some stage, DS offers a cool off period of 30 days to shift your data from cloud to local vault. But there is another better way to handle it, which I will explain in our next conversations.
(I do assume we will own the rights to our data and Dassault cannot refuse to release them to us or share them without our consent.!)
You are absolutely right, and DS clearly mentions it in the cloud data security, that the data is always owned by the user, DS is just keeping it safely and nobody, even DS could not access it without your consent, and at any point, you could take the data off from cloud should the need arise.
And finally.
- I don’t suppose there is an option for “off-line” access to the service if our internet drops out.? (Which it does from time to time.)
What if I tell you there is, there are times when users have limited or no internet available, for such situations, the cloud SOLIDWORKS has a feature called ‘offline mode’ which lets the user continue their work even with no internet, and once the connection is back, it takes the data to save on cloud then. While using the cloud SW, it creates a local cache in your machine same as desktop, so there is no possibility of losing work or downtime due to internet.

(I dont actually need anything from these people.. My desktop instal is quite up-to-date, 2022 SP.5, and on-subs until mid-late 2025 But I am asking these things because we may need to utilise a contractor or temporary additional team member in the future.)

There is definitely some follow-up that needs to be had to clarify some of this further.
Does anyone know of anything further that is NOT being said..? Or thoughts on what else should be asked..?

[acmall]

The cloud security is the main attraction cloud based licensing, it follows the ISO standard of security (majority of the big companies like Microsoft, uber etc uses the same data security standard)

Because the companies mentioned have never had data breaches

[SPerman]

- I don’t suppose there is an option for “off-line” access to the service if our internet drops out.? (Which it does from time to time.)[/color]
What if I tell you there is, there are times when users have limited or no internet available, for such situations, the cloud SOLIDWORKS has a feature called ‘offline mode’ which lets the user continue their work even with no internet, and once the connection is back, it takes the data to save on cloud then. While using the cloud SW, it creates a local cache in your machine same as desktop, so there is no possibility of losing work or downtime due to internet.

What they don't tell you is that in 2 years this feature will be eliminated. At that point, working offline will cost an additional $xxx per license.

[Frederick_Law]

Yea, if you know you'll be offline, you can switch it.
Can't do that when you got offline unexpected.
Or worse, DS went offline.

[Frank_Oostendorp]

Yea, if you know you'll be offline, you can switch it.
Can't do that when you got offline unexpected.
Or worse, DS went offline.

Only way to work reliable with the 3DExperience connected version of SolidWorks, is to work offline all the time, and only go online to keep your software license active for the next offline session.

[RichGergely]

Well believe it or not (no doubt you will believe it because it sounds like the kind of thing they would try).

We have this new thing after July if you go off subs for a year you will need to buy two maintenance to go back on. I have been told that initially Solidworks were trying to do 4 years maintenance!! How true this is I don't know but apparently there was a big back lash from VAR's so they changed it to two years.

[Frederick_Law]

DS is making all other options more attractive, legal and illegal.

[Diaval]

Yes, the existing desktop and cloud SOLIDWORKS are exactly same in usage, even the cloud Solidworks is installed in a local machine, yet connected to cloud. The cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version, so yes, the new user will be able to open existing SW files in cloud SW
- Will that change our files so I cannot use them in our desktop version.?
As I wrote above, it won’t change your files, it will be same format as desktop.

Pay attention to the statement that the cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version. This means that currently the cloud SOLIDWORKS is 2023 SP2. You mention that you are using desktop version 2022 SP5. If the files are modified by a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, you may have issues opening the files on your desktop version.

[RichGergely]

Pay attention to the statement that the cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version. This means that currently the cloud SOLIDWORKS is 2023 SP2. You mention that you are using desktop version 2022 SP5. If the files are modified by a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, you may have issues opening the files on your desktop version.

Yep my new VAR has said this is a problem. Being a self-employed consultant myself, many times I have had to load on old versions of Solidworks for my clients benefit.

[AlexLachance]

Pay attention to the statement that the cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version. This means that currently the cloud SOLIDWORKS is 2023 SP2. You mention that you are using desktop version 2022 SP5. If the files are modified by a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, you may have issues opening the files on your desktop version.

Nice catch there!

[Frederick_Law]

Pay attention to the statement that the cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version. This means that currently the cloud SOLIDWORKS is 2023 SP2. You mention that you are using desktop version 2022 SP5. If the files are modified by a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, you may have issues opening the files on your desktop version.

It was confusing in the SWYM.
Does the Cloud SW use same file format as Desktop SW?
Could the Cloud save file to Desktop format? Or just STEP, ParaSolid?

Or Maker is the one with different file format?

[Diaval]

It was confusing in the SWYM.
Does the Cloud SW use same file format as Desktop SW?
Could the Cloud save file to Desktop format? Or just STEP, ParaSolid?

Or Maker is the one with different file format?

3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS (cloud), Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS (Desktop with cloud add-in), and SOLIDWORKS Maker all use the same SW format as SW Desktop. The Maker version is tagged with a watermark that prevents it from being able to be opened by any version other than Maker though.

The X Apps use a different kernel.

[jcapriotti]

There is confusion here on "cloud". There is desktop "cloud connected" SolidWorks which what we use today with an add-in that connects to the 3dx cloud to work on files located there. I'm guess files are cached locally somewhere so it acts as a lite PDMish type tool.

Then there is "Cloud" SolidWorks aka xDesign, xShape, xSheetmetal etc. which is the native in the cloud application (browser based) that is broken up into a bunch of modules that you have to pay for individually. Looks to me to be online Catia rebranded with SolidWorks terminology. This data cannot be read by desktopworks other than as dumb solid bodies, no features.

[mattpeneguy]

There is confusion here on "cloud". There is desktop "cloud connected" SolidWorks which what we use today with an add-in that connects to the 3dx cloud to work on files located there. I'm guess files are cached locally somewhere so it acts as a lite PDMish type tool.

Then there is "Cloud" SolidWorks aka xDesign, xShape, xSheetmetal etc. which is the native in the cloud application (browser based) that is broken up into a bunch of modules that you have to pay for individually. Looks to me to be online Catia rebranded with SolidWorks terminology. This data cannot be read by desktopworks other than as dumb solid bodies, no features.

Well, the confusion is their fault because they've made all of this as clear as mud.

[Damo]

Wow..

Yeah it seems I am not the only one with questions and confusion from seeminly conflicting information.

There is confusion here on "cloud". There is desktop "cloud connected" SolidWorks which what we use today with an add-in that connects to the 3dx cloud to work on files located there. I'm guess files are cached locally somewhere so it acts as a lite PDMish type tool.

Then there is "Cloud" SolidWorks aka xDesign, xShape, xSheetmetal etc. which is the native in the cloud application (browser based) that is broken up into a bunch of modules that you have to pay for individually. Looks to me to be online Catia rebranded with SolidWorks terminology. This data cannot be read by desktopworks other than as dumb solid bodies, no features.

Solidworks "Cloud Connected", is the one they imply will come with all new solidworks purchases..
But is different to "Maker" and the "X" versions..!?!

Pay attention to the statement that the cloud SOLIDWORKS is always on the latest version. This means that currently the cloud SOLIDWORKS is 2023 SP2. You mention that you are using desktop version 2022 SP5. If the files are modified by a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, you may have issues opening the files on your desktop version.

OOOOooooo This is a VERY good point.. And one suspiciously I'm sure my reseller just kinda glossed over, hoping we would discover the hard way and NEED to pay, maybe..?

Yep my new VAR has said this is a problem. Being a self-employed consultant myself, many times I have had to load on old versions of Solidworks for my clients benefit.

This is you confirming the reality of Diaval's comment..?

What they don't tell you is that in 2 years this feature will be eliminated. At that point, working offline will cost an additional $xxx per license.

This definitely was conveniently omitted.. Did you learn this from your reseller.? or is this documented somewhere we can all read..?

Yea, if you know you'll be offline, you can switch it.
Can't do that when you got offline unexpected.
Or worse, DS went offline.

As above.. Is this documented somewhere.? Or do you have first-hand experience..?

There are definitely a couple more good questions and comments here I will include in my followup interrogation questions with our reseller.

[Damo]

Only way to work reliable with the 3DExperience connected version of SolidWorks, is to work offline all the time, and only go online to keep your software license active for the next offline session.

Frank.
This is what you do..?
How does that work..?