Wanted - CEO for SpaceClaim

SpaceClaim's PR firm contacted me to clarify that Rich Moore is not the CEO as I mentioned earlier today. This is what they said, "While Rich is indeed a public face of the company, he is not taking over Mike’s role as CEO. The company has undertaken a search for a new CEO".

So Rich Moore is "a" public face of SpaceClaim, not "the" public face as Randall mentioned on CADCAMNet. Not quite sure what to make of that.

SpaceClaim's New Direction

Randall Newton is reporting on CADCAMNet that Mike Payne, the CEO of SpaceClaim, has been made Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors and Business Development VP Rich Moore is taking over his place.

Apart from a new face for the CEO, the company recently gave a new face to it's web site as well, although they have still not updated their leadership page with the new hiararchy. The SpaceClaim blog has dissappeared altogether. I am not surprised since the last post was on Jan 4th this year.

One thing is for sure. SpaceClaim is changing direction. In fact, is has been changing direction for quite some time now. Among other things, they now offer a trial, a perpetual license option and have priced it more reasonably.

SpaceClaim also now claims to be the world's first "Natural 3D Design System", which if I have understood correctly, is another fancy phrase for "Direct Modeling System".
SpaceClaim is also keeping one eye on AutoCAD users. Take a look at this video. Mike Payne showed me this at COFES 2008 in April this year and I was blown away.

For the most part SpaceClaim appears to have got it right. However, I think SpaceClaim is trying to be a lot of things to a lot of people. That's probably because it can indeed do a lot of things. I may be wrong, but I think a better idea would be to position itself as a "Jack of All Traits and Master of One", the "One" in this case being its ability to be a revolution for AutoCAD users. The video mentioned above does not leave much to imagination, does it?

I believe this makes good business sense as well, especially since AutoCAD users form the largest section of prospective customers for SpaceClaim. They need to be given special attention and the message to them needs to be louder than the messages to other people. Very few people appreciate a Jack, but everyone admires a Master. In this small and over-crowded CAD world, you need to be a Master to get noticed.

Watch this space. There is something else going on in this sphere which I cannot share right now. Keep guessing...

SolidWorks Subscription Brainwave

Matt Lombard's recent post got me wondering. According to a SolidWorks reseller, if a SolidWorks user lapses a maintenance contract for a year or more, he needs to pay a penalty equal to (Total Years Missed x $850) + Annual Subscription.

So if SolidWorks is penalizing customers who do not renew their subscription, it would make wonderful sense for them to reward those who see great value in their subscription program. Moments ago I was hit by a brainwave. Why not allow customers to purchase subscription in advance for future years. Applying similar logic used in the formula above, if a customer wants to purchase future subscription renewals he would get a fantastic discount equal to (Annual Subscription - $850) x Total Years Purchased. Sounds fair to me. What do you think?

Note: For those who haven't got it yet, this post has sarcasm oozing from every word, punctuation mark and whitespace character.

Welcome to IntelliCAD.net

I would like to break my long silence with an announcement. Today I launched IntelliCAD.net, a network of IntelliCAD users. Or at least that is what I hope it will eventually be.

I have been writing about IntelliCAD, the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium (ITC), it's members, the OpenDesign Alliance (ODA) and Autodesk on this blog for a couple of years now. I have also been interacting with IntelliCAD users all over the world.

The history of IntelliCAD is as unique as is the way it's users interact with each other. Most IntelliCAD vendors have some sort of communication mechanism for their customers - such as forums, discussion groups, etc. However, in all these years I have not come across any central place where all IntelliCAD users can meet up and help each other, exchange views and increase their understanding about IntelliCAD. I find this kind of weird because all of them are using software from the same code base and effectively works almost the same, save the bells and whistles added by each vendor. The IntelliCAD vendors are actually business rivals and it is not in their best interest to let their customers mingle.

I believe that a lot can be achieved if IntelliCAD users across the board can meet up in a single place. And that is precisely the reason why I created IntelliCAD.net. I must admit that I do not know the first thing about managing a network like this and I hope I dont screw up too much. Help will be greatly appreciated.

I would apreciate it if you could spread the word and let IntelliCAD users the world over know about IntelliCAD.net. I am pretty sure everyone will have something to offer. As far as I am concerned, my company develops plug-ins for IntelliCAD among many other CAD applications. So I guess we will have somethig to offer as well.

At IntelliCAD.net you can do a lot of things, some of which are:
1) Use the forums to ask and offer help and keep up to speed with all things IntelliCAD
2) Post on the IntelliCAD.net network blog. If you always wanted to blog but never got down to doing it, maybe now's the time.
3) Create or join groups of members
4) Share photos and videos
5) Post events such as user meetings, tradeshows, etc.

Lets see how this goes.