So who sales the most seats?

Some interesting data on CAM sales

http://www.cimdata.com./press/PR06-0524.htm

wierd ,from the pie chart delcam is the only one ive heard of.

Very little that CIMData publishes is interesting to me because a CADCAM company must pay CIMData to review their software.

CIMData is far from an unbiased authority and everything CIMData says should be taken with a grain of salt.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

Hi Jon,

I haven't seen you around lately. How are you doing?

Dan

Dan,

Been very busy. I miss our discussions.

Have you seen this tutorial done by James Carruthers?

http://www.hydraulicdesign.net/fvs3-sample/concept-a-sample.htm


Without a doubt James Carruthers has raised the bar when it comes to learning real world high-end surfacing at an affordable price.

I wish anyone lots of luck doing this kind of modeling in Alibre, SolidWorks, etc.

RhinoCAM needs a real marketing program, Dan. I don't believe the proper one exists for it at the moment and I'm after Joe Anand to do something about it.


Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona.

Hi Jon. Long time no see. Hope all is well with you

wierd ,from the pie chart delcam is the only one ive heard of.

Click to expand...

UGS - Unigraphics, SolidEdge, I-Deas
IBM/Dassault - Catia, SolidWorks
PTC - Pro/Engineer

You've never heard of these?

Don't laugh but the true seller of most seats could be Bobcad

They are cheap so they can sell 10 for 1 seat of an upmarket software.

Whether their customers keep on using it is another thing but the question was most sales of seats.

John S.

It’s good to see some familiar names that I haven’t seen for awhile. Welcome back!

As for the survey, looks like you have to register or pay (?) to get all the information. I don’t see BobCad mentioned, wonder why? I believe Mastercam is the one that says CNC at 2.9%. Looks like the percentages come from total sales $ not installed seats. Of course because higher priced system like Catia and UGS are 3 times the price of a Mastercam seat, it will show more $ but possibly sell less seats. The huge 35% for all the others seems odd to me because I didn't think there were that many other systems

I just googled Mastercam and it looks like they have 8,000 seats installed!
-Carl

Bobcad can sell that many on the last Friday in the month

John S.

“I just googled Mastercam and it looks like they have 8,000 seats installed!”

Not true, they have close to 50,000 seats installed according to their own web site.
Surfcam had close to 20,000 the last time I heard, can’t say about the others.

The number of seats is not a good indicator of anything. Haas sold 10,500 machines last year, so does that make them the best? (No offense to the Haas people, we have 2 ourselves) Marketing and "in-your-face" sales are probably a bigger factor than quality or functionality.

Jon, I have been aware of the hydraulic designs web site for years. There is a wealth of information there.

Dan

The numbers indicate where the demand is, like it or not. The demand for something usually means investment in future product development. Also for some, there is some comfort in being part of the majority. I don’t have any Haas machines nor do I use Mastercam here, but worry that someday my investments in my machines and CAM software will all be for nothing should these companies fail for lack of a demand. If I were starting a shop today I would be a fool if I did not consider the long term consequences of my purchases.

Marketing and "in-your-face" sales are probably a bigger factor than quality or functionality.

Click to expand...

I would disagree with that. I do have a copy of Bobcad, but bought it on my own and not because some amazing salesman told me so.
Also, While HAAS has a fairly large customer base, no way in hell would that be possible if they were selling junk, < peanut gallery, remain silent please. > and unlike Bobcad, HAAS-s are not being put on the shelf with the note " Shouldn't have done that"
Now to Moldcore's issue, while you have a point in trying to establish relationships with companies that are here for the long run, I'd say for SW that is less important than for machinery.
Your machine is supposed to last a certain amount of years, and for that period you NEED to have support available.
SW OTOH is more like you need support until you're up and running and once you're comfortable with it it should not break and not need the support as much.
This also relates back to a recent thread about the maintenance fees and upgrades.

but worry that someday my investments in my machines and CAM software will all be for nothing should these companies fail for lack of a demand.

Click to expand...

Are you making money with your CAM software and machine(s)? Have you realized your ROI? If so,how can it be for nothing? I don't give a flying crap who sells the most of anything. We use products that work for us, regardless of whether they have a .2% share or a 20% share of the market. We use Hermle machines for 5-axis cutting, and they are far superior to Haas (even though Haas is not junk, they are not even in the same city, let alone ballpark). Hermle's share in the marketplace wouldn't even register on a graph next to Haas. So maybe the demand is there for low cost decent machines, but I'll still be holding tight tolerances in 20 years with the Hermles.

Dan

Software is more prone to obsolescence than machines. My original Surfcam will not run on today’s computers, some of my machines purchased before that Surfcam still run today. I’ve kept my SW up to date for a small fee, I wish I could say the same for the machines. One machine is too slow for anything but 2D work now. That machine hasn’t slowed down, the others are newer and have faster controllers, servos, etc.

Dan B.
Should Hermle go under for lack of sales next year (hypothetically), I don’t believe you’ll be able to run that machine 20 years from now unless you keep a lot of spare parts around. Or if you’re lucky and the machine makes it to age 20 and the company is still in business, do you really think they will continue to support that controller on the machine? Hermle is a fine machine and in great demand for 5 axis work. There is an aerospace company down the road that has a dozen of them making jet engine parts 24/7. A friend who operates one says they do break down occasionally, just not as often as their Haas’s.

Back to SW, as a shop owner who also programs (Surfcam) and designs (Solid Edge, KeyCreator), I’ve learned a few things over the years. Cheap software doesn’t equate to early return on investment or a profitable business if it can’t do the job efficiently. Most good software can take months to become proficient using. I’m not in the market anymore for software but if I were I would want to seriously look at what others are using. Surveys like Cimdata’s help pointing you in a direction to look. Besides, Jon’s probably right about the bias in the survey, who knows for sure.

Surveys are not usually worth the paper they're printed on, unless they're in-depth, and entirely comprehensive of the overall picture. Just telling someone who has the most market share, as a percentage, or in terms of dollars, doesn't mean diddly-squat.

Tell me what percentage of users are doing 2,3, and 5 axis work, on what type of operations, and on what platform. Tell me how long they've owned the seats, and how many seats have been lost from a certain platform, previous to the new sale. Tell me the price range, and user satisfaction. Give a user matrix of all comparable features, and see how things really compare.

This comparison (that moldcore posted the link to) isn't good for much, except for bragging rights - and it's not much good for that. A truly good data matrix would most likely be unfeasible, unless industry, as a whole, paid a lot of money, and spent a lot of time to develop it. By the time it was published, it would most likely be obsolete.

I think - personally - that there should be an organization, a sort of independent committee, that sets standards for products like CAD/CAM. (similar to ASME or ANSI) They would write policy for what software should include for a particular price range, (without necessarily dictating price) and mandate that all directives be met, at the time of release, for inclusion in the certification process. Certification would not be mandatory, but would most likely become the industry stamp of approval. It would also take competition to a new level, both in terms of stable releases, and cost vs. functionality. (as opposed to today's standard - charge whatever you can, and hope that nobody finds out what you don't have, and the other guy does)

A friend who operates one says they do break down occasionally, just not as often as their Haas’s.

Click to expand...

Yes, we have had a few problems with our Hermle in the beginning. Our Haas machines have been pretty reliable, just not as accurate as the Hermle. With the Haas machines we treat them "with kid gloves" because we know that we need to be gentle if we want to see them around for the long haul. If we did identical work on the Haas machine that we have done on the Hermle we would be seeing the Haas service man a lot more.

As far as software goes (and that really was the point of this thread), the Cimdata survey is not a reliable gauge for the reasons already mentioned. UGS may have the highest $'s for 2005, but that doesn't reflect how they get those $'s. We have a seat of UG NX4 (but not the CAM module) and it is frustrating to see the way they do business. We pay our annual maintenance fees, and expected that that would cover the upgrade from NX3 to NX4. When the upgrade was available, we got an invoice for a "Media pack" for close to $700 plus another maintanance fee. We assumed that this was some type of tutorials so we didn't pay it. Turns out that the "Media pack" was the CD to install the upgrade. So in reality, our annual maintanence fee for UG was theoretical only. Almost $700 for a CD? And what the hell do I need to pay another annual maintenance fee on a CD for? I hate to think what kind of money we would be swindled out of if we had more than the bare-bones basic NX package.

Dan

Hats off to Wayne (moldcore) for how this thread is being handled. Just wanted to say thanks for being such a good moderator, Wayne. I appreciate it. I hope you had a good holiday. When you can please speak more about KeyCreator. I really like what is being done with this product as far as handling non-native data.

Garlicdude... Nice to see you post here. Please drop me an e-mail.

John Stevenson... Excellent points about BobCADCAM's market share. Thanks for making them.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona