Rome wasn't built in a day. As a matter of fact, it took centuries for Rome to conquer the known world. GrabCAD, too, is out to conquer the known world, but it's not taking nearly as long.
You can blame it on technology or the speed of the communication age, but there is one thing for certain we can all be happy about from the world-dominating company, GrabCAD found it unnecessary to the exploit the "JOIN US OR DIE" adage of Roman conquerors. As a matter of fact, GrabCAD recently surpassed 1,000,000 volunteer members on its website. People are volunteering to join this dominion! How many subjects lived within the Roman Empire around 395 AD?
And today marks another capstone in the journey to world domination. GrabCAD released from beta testing its file management features that allow for collaborate product development (CPD). These features include:
- Desktop Sync
- File Locking
- Partner Spaces
- Visual version comparison
- Revision Management
- Automatic version backup + restore
And much like the Roman Legions, you can't expand your empire without being professional. The end of beta marks the point where these new features will be available as part of Workbench Professional. (Enterprise customers get CPD plus additional IT controls and storage.) But any army requires a tax to support it, and CPD is no different. The pricing for Workbench Professional goes up to $59 per user per month and Workbench Enterprise goes up to $89 per user per month. A small price to pay for the safety and security provided by GrabCAD's CPD. Those who have been dutifully paying their membership tax may be able to take advantage of a discount being offered today only.
But that's not all. New features are added to Workbench as well. GrabCAD has released a Solidwork add-in. Now, Solidworks users can upload and download files right from within their CAD system. The Solidworks diocese is just the first to integrate due to the shear number of plebs members. Members from sects outside of Solidworks can still use the existing Workbench tools as well as the new neutral file translator. (Although someday, I'm sure, we'll all be speaking the same language.)
(Note: The similarities between GrabCAD and the Roman Empire are purely coincidental.)
Source:
http://blog.grabcad.com/2014/01/announce-cpd-solidworks-workbench/