Last Thursday, I was out getting a Torta for lunch, when my phone rang, with a Massachusetts phone number. It was Scott Harris, one of the founders of SolidWorks.
Scott doesn’t normally call me, though we’ve known each other for 18 years or so. In this case, he wanted to tell me something: that morning a corporation had been formed. By him (of course), Dave Corcoran, Tommy Li, Mike Lauer, John McEleney, and, as CEO, Jon Hirschtick.
That’s all. He was just calling folks he knew in the CAD industry to let them know. Just a courtesy call. Some other people I know got similar calls, either from Scott, or John. (It could be that all six of them were making such calls.)
What will the company do? They’re exploring that right now.
Are they looking for publicity? No; just letting folks know what they’re doing. (Reminds me of when John McEleney stepped down as CEO of SolidWorks. He took the time to make personal phone calls to a lot of people, me included, to give them a heads up. Class act.)
Why does it matter?
It’s not quite like the Beatles getting back together, but these are some of the key people who launched SolidWorks, and made it one of the great success stories of the CAD industry. For people who know the players, the most interesting question is this: Are they hiring?
A few weeks back, Jon gave a keynote presentation at the CIMdata PLM Road Map conference in Detroit. One of the things he talked about was that CAD is not done. There’s still work to be done to make CAD what it can be. I talked quite a bit with Jon at that conference, and got the sense that he’s still exploring possibilities.
As for this group: my guess is that they’d like to do something of substance, that has the potential to be of great value to engineers and designers. If they were just about the money, it’d be easier to do something totally unrelated to engineering software. Like maybe create a photo sharing site, and sell it to Facebook for a billion dollars.
I think it’s an interesting question to ponder: If you had a team of experienced and smart people who really know how CAD systems are built—a team as good as this—what problem would you tackle?
Would you build the CAD system of the future? And what would that system look like?
burhop says
Evan, I love your questions at the end. I bet you have a few readers dreaming about the future.
The word “CAD” carries a lot of baggage with it…presupposed functionality, markets, strengths, limitations. I’m guessing what they do will have to fit in a much broader definition of CAD.
Maybe we will get some new ideas (and new words) out of what they do.
DevonSowell says
Great news, looking forward to what this team produces.
Rick McWilliams says
Accurate reliable geometry.
dezignstuff says
It’s a great opportunity, and the time is right for a big change. I’d be looking for something with both ease of use and complete power through just an interface switch. Something that enables fast concepting and detailed precision. It would have to be compelling technology at a great everyday price. Something that merges say modo, Tsplines, and a solid modeler. I think merging mesh and solid is a big thing, with all the scanning and 3d printing so available now. This could bring CAD into more medical applications, and bring CGI into CAD. Maybe with touches of the analytical/art from Solid Thinking’s organic optimization.
There’s a wide range of possibilities, but a huge untapped area is mesh => solid.
Kevin De Smet says
Something that I’ve always felt is that modern CAD systems are very good at modeling rigid objects, stiff metal thing and stiff plastic things. But it’s not very capable at all at representing flexible materials. Think a simple example: a cloth backpack. I’m not sure if there’s much need for being able to model better “soft” things but, perhaps?
marsofearth says
Something along the ease of use like “SketchUp” but pushing into the pro/amateur sector starting fucus on accurate and precise geometry.
Cross Plat-former Mac, Windows, Linux… possibly iOS/Android.
4D would be nice allowing each piece/part/model to be assigned a temporal position.
Temporal position would act both as “back-up/History” and as an evolutionary visualization with possibilities of animation.
Smart/optimized modular coding allowing of optimizations and coding efficiencies with each evolutionary upgrade cycle.