A contemplation of the CAD revolutions—successful or otherwise—that started with Part 1: Onshape Is Favored but Challenger Emerges, continued with Part 2: Autodesk, and now picks up again with the present chapter about the emergence and unqualified success of SolidWorks.
SolidWorks is a David and Goliath story. A small company, unknown in the ranks of contenders, that bests an industry giant. The reasons for SolidWorks’ success abound: it was a great deal (the 80/20 rule—most of the capability and at a fraction of the cost), it was borne of MIT (founder Jon Hirschtick was an MIT graduate), it was easy to use (Windows-based with a GUI vs. a command line-driven UI), and it could do parametric mechanical CAD (MCAD) on cheap PCs (it did not require an expensive workstation). All valid reasons, and in their entirety, a most compelling argument for success. But we will argue that there was more to SolidWorks’ meteoric rise and its now unshakeable lead than can be explained by mere technological advantage or economics. It was marketing.
Timing Was Lucky
SolidWorks makes its debut with SolidWorks 95. It was not what was in the modest-looking box that bested the industry leaders (PTC and Autodesk) but what was in the marketing plan. (Picture courtesy of Jeff Setzer in www.gsc-3d.com/blog/.)
SolidWorks burst on the scene with its 1995 edition and took the CAD world by storm. The timing was critical. Microsoft had released Windows 95. DOS, short for disk operating system, was the OS of choice at the time. DOS had a text-based UI and a command line, as did the applications that ran on it. To use it, you had to recall commands from memory or use notes pinned to the computer monitor. With Windows, you could click on icons with a mouse. Microsoft had ried several iterations of a GUI, but it wasn’t until Windows 95 that the GUI proved reliable enough for engineering and design use. SolidWorks saw a wave starting to form and jumped on it. It was a wave that turned into a tsunami. Autodesk, well established with its own text-based UI and command line did not see the sea change and let the breakaway go.
At the same time, CAD software was undergoing a fundamental change. The young CAD industry may have realized that it had done nothing more than create an electronic drafting board. Designs were still only 2D. It hardly seemed revolutionary. Users were realizing the same thing. They were doing essentially the same thing they had been doing before, but now using a screen instead of a drafting table. The real revolution was coming, and it was going to be in 3D modeling—something you could not do on a drafting board.
Autodesk was making a foray into 3D and solid modeling. It had started using the ACIS geometry kernel for AutoCAD and built a vertical application on top of AutoCAD called Mechanical Desktop (MDT). But MDT’s UI was the same as AutoCAD’s, and by the ’90s, it was looking tired.
SolidWorks, however, looked like CAD gone modern. It was built from the ground up as a Window native application. For all the CAD users who realized that they really had to go 3D to benefit from computer-aided design, the move to a new, modern application, primarily a 3D application rather than a 3D afterthought, and acquiring SolidWorks was a no-brainer.
Getting into Showbiz
Next to the luckiest timing imaginable, marketing was critical to SolidWorks’ success.
The fledgling SolidWorks made a big gamble. Not more than a year old, the company sank whatever money it had and borrowed the rest to get the biggest booths at all the main trade shows. It engaged every editor in search of a story and dazzled every engineer in search of 3D mechanical CAD software.
The big shows were Autofact in Detroit, A/E/C Systems and NDES in Chicago. None of them have survived to this age of the Internet, but during ’90s, that is where CAD shoppers went to get informed about what was available. With everyone out shopping for CAD and every editor in search of a story, the trade shows were the place to be.
SolidWorks, despite the enormous costs, managed to have booths that were every bit as grand as Autodesk’s and as PTC’s. SolidWorks was front and center—at the entrance of the show floor, next to Autodesk, as big as Autodesk—providing users and editors alike with an impression of a company that was already successful and established. Had we missed something big? If we only attended trade shows to get the lay of the land, it was easy to feel as if a revolution had happened on our beat without our knowledge. We were not to question the apparent success. We took the company at face value.
Read All About It
For everyone else, the majority of people who weren’t allowed out to shop, they could get their information from the trade press, who had dutifully turned their trade show experience into articles.
SolidWorks bought full-page glossy magazine ads. It was pure marketing genius. Courting the publishers that salivated for advertising dollars led to pressure on editors to provide additional coverage such as reviews. Favorable coverage was no coincidence. While less scrupulous publications may have considered a “pay for play” or “advertorial” in return for the business, even conscientious editors committed to editorial integrity would associate the buckets of cash spent on spreads (side-by-side full-page ads) as a sign of viability, of seriousness of purpose, of a company that was adequately funded for a revolution. SolidWorks, by all indications, looked like it was going places and had the funds to assure smooth passage.
The advertising dollars SolidWorks lavished on trade publications had their intended purpose. Suddenly, mentions of SolidWorks were everywhere. The magazines that sought to educate users in the use of AutoCAD were trumpeting another CAD software, one that was up and coming, was Windows native, a much better deal (compared to the haughty PTC, which didn’t think it needed to advertise), the heir to the throne, the next AutoCAD, the next Pro/ENGINEER. So thick was the coverage that it created the impression that SolidWorks was already everywhere, popular—and if you weren’t using it, you were behind and missing out. [Full disclosure: Author was editor in chief of CADENCE magazine, one of the two leading magazines devoted to CAD, mostly AutoCAD, at the time.]
Not Alone, but Standing Out
SolidWorks may have been the most visible and vocal of the PC-based MCAD contenders of the time, but it was by no means the only PC-based solid modeler. Wander down the aisles to encounter several more. There was Solid Edge, then owned by Intergraph, which was also introduced in 1995. Solid Edge matched SolidWorks feature for feature and bested SolidWorks with an interface that was easier to use. A few years later, another solid modeler, IronCAD, started exhibiting at trade shows, its booths bathed in its signature red, a most auspicious color in its native China. IronCAD had a most innovative interface featuring the TriBall that let users push and pull geometry. You may or may not have seen KeyCAD or Alibre, both competent, dedicated solid modeling programs worthy of consideration for any CAD shopper. But by the time CAD shoppers and editors found them, they were spent. They already had their product or their story. What more could there be in the small, 10-footby 10-foot booths?
Marketing Changes the Game
“If a man can make a better mouse trap, the world will make a beaten path to his door,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson and wished those in the small booths toward the back of the show floor, of the solid modeling companies without the marketing plans or dollars, all hoping their software could only be judged on its merits, not by size of the crowds drawn in by the carnival style hawkers in the big booths. Since when was popularity a measure of quality? Those in the 10-foot by 10-foot booths relied on the engineer’s good sense. Engineers are prone to value technical competence and bang for the buck. It’s no wonder that engineers favor Android smartphones over Apple’s, Hondas over Mercedes, and so on. Check box comparisons, testing (as opposed to subjective testing), how long does it take to model our widget, and so on, is data used to make a buying decision whether it is cars, cameras or CAD programs. We read Consumer Reports, we make objective comparisons—that’s how we roll.
In the early days, CAD shopping was indeed a checklist affair. Engineers would subject CAD company application engineers to “shoot-outs,” observing and recording how fast a vendor’s CAD jockey could model the company’s widget. It was a very objective method, very engineeringly … and very short lived.
Shoot-outs and checklist, a data gathering exercise that could be used to chart performance on the Y-axis and dollars on the X-axis would determine the value. But this technique gave way to more subjective criteria applied by less analytical people—those higher on the corporate ladder but further from the actual use of CAD. For those who could not appreciate a CAD program’s advantages, its nuance, its details and distinctions, all CAD programs looked the same, more or less. Didn’t they all model in 3D? Hadn’t they achieved parity after competing with each other? It was assumed there were no significant differences. A feature or enhancement, like fillets that actually worked, may bring applause from the design engineer but elicit only a yawn from their manager. With the performance a constant, the only variable that remained was cost. Decisions as to which CAD program to choose became super easy: the cheaper one.
But we oversimplify. Executives may not be technical but they can be smart. Other factors were considered, after all. You would not want to invest in a rinky-dink company—one of those with the booths by the bathrooms, a company with a product no one else was paying attention to, that no one was buying. That company may not be around for long. How would that reflect on you? Best to go with a company that looked successful, well established—one that would not go belly-up when it ran out of funds, whose products your competition may already be using. You would not get fired for betting on a winner. That was a safe decision, an easy decision.
Next: Why the SolidWorks playbook won’t work today.