MasterCAM for Solidworks Discontinued, Anyone Know Anything?

[rcoope]

We just got a not that MasterCAM for Solidworks is being discontinued. I was curious if anyone knows anything more about the product strategy, if there is anyway. Is this because SW now has its own in-house CAM? I have to say, outside of pricing considerations, while MC4SW is a cool idea in principle, I didn't in my limited usage of it find that it made life much easier vs using standalone MasterCAM after doing CAD in Solidworks. Once you've figured out how to manipulate models and create a bit of geometry in MCAM, the challenges are all around optimizing the tool paths and such. I'd be curious if others have thoughts.

 

[Marvel]

I read on a Facebook Machinist page (not sure if its true) that the MC/SW users were something like less than 5% - 10% of it's user base and MasterCam didn't see the value in continuing investing into the option.

A lot of people seem to not know that SolidWorksCAM isn't actually a "new" CAM option. SolidWorksCAM is CAMWorks rebranded. CAMWorks was the first CAM system integrated into SolidWorks over 20 years ago. CAMWorks actually only functions in SW, it isn't a standalone CAM system, if you "buy" CAMWorks you also buy a SW seat.

I've also heard rumors SolidWorks (Dassault) may acquire CAMWorks fully and the SolidWorksCAM rebranding was one of the initial phases to see what kind of traction/interest they get out of it.

 

[mhajicek]

MC4SW was a great idea, but since they never ironed out the major issues, very few people switched to it. And because very few people switched to it, they decided it's a dead end product. Self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[aldepoalo]

I agree that it's interesting seeing MC pulled the MC for SOLIDWORKS product line... Do you think this change would have happened if they weren't acquired?

 

[rcoope]

I think if MC4SW had been really popular they would have kept with it despite any acquisition. As people have said, it just never worked smoothly enough to make sense vs running native MC. The good news is they seem to have very fair policies about migrating expiring MC4SW license to full MC. Come to think of it, it's actually the first fair thing I've seen in CAD/CAM pricing in ages!

 

[Mtndew]

This....plus millturn....plus active reports....plus tool manager.....Lots of things cock halfed!
"They" obviously have the resourse and the ability, one can only blame the managing....

I don't have mill-turn, but their active reports is just not user friendly at all. X+ is 1,000x better for setup sheets. If it was better configured out of the box then it would be worth looking in to but as it stands, it needs way too much initial configuration to even begin to use it effectively.

I don't use the tool manager either because I really don't need it for what I do. I have messed with it here and there,but it just doesn't seem to have anything that would benefit me and how I use Mastercam.

 

[mhajicek]

Active Reports Viewer is hot garbage. It looks like it was someone's school project, where they were told to use a different style for every control.

That said, I got an AR setup sheet working to my liking about a decade ago, and I'm still using it.

 

[Trevor360]

This is not surprising. Mastercam and Solidworks on their own are both great pieces of software. So together was great in theory, but the integration was so bad and made it difficult to use. I would guess that most of the MC4SW users were students who were not paying for the software. I have never seen many industrial users use MC4SW over the standalone application.