3D CAD NEWS

Everyone is confused about the various roles and products that Dassault delivers – except that we all know that SolidWorks is from SolidWorks and CATIA is from Dassault, right? And most of the industry vaguely remembers that SolidWorks is owned by Dassault. What then, we ask, does Delmia, and Enovia, two other lesser known Dassault companies, actually do? No one I talk to can ever really explain what it is they do although the Dassault web site states “With DELMIA, the lean digital manufacturing processes are defined. With ENOVIA, product lifecycle information is managed in a collaborative way.” yeah. That’s clear!

Dassault has evidently realized the same, and also recognized the powerful brand that SolidWorks maintains. Thus, Dassault announced this week during the CATIA Operators’ Exchange (COE) that the SolidWorks reseller channel would now be known as the ‘Dassault Systemes Volume Channel’. Roopinder’s CAD Insider blog, where this news broke, stated that “When pressed to name what products Dassault would be pumping into the "volume channel" in the future, [Bernard] Charles was not clear.”

So, without any clarity in its complete intent, Dassault would seem to be setting up the strong SolidWorks VAR channel to be able to sell other Dassault products, along the lines of its PLM offerings for the SMB (Small-to-Medium_sized Businesses).

The grapevine indicates that SolidWorks themselves were caught flat-footed with this news, with reports of sales managers at SolidWorks unaware of the announcement even after Roopinder broke the news on his CADInsider blog.
On being contacted by various VARs SolidWorks reportedly managed to get a hurried message out to its sales channel essentially saying (I am paraphrasing) ‘Ignore! Stay focused on selling SolidWorks!’ We anticipate that SolidWorks management will have better guidance promptly for their sales team.

We believe that, if improperly managed, this move will serve to defocus the SolidWorks resellers, allowing gaps for other vendors to fill. Additional products being forced on the resellers also increases their costs of doing business, and Dassault will have to take a mature approach to tackle this or else the resellers simply will not sell those additional products.

The long run gamble is that we think SolidWorks will allow the name change, (Dassault after all does own them), but nothing will essentially change in the product line up and sales focus for the SolidWorks VARs.

Hey. Maybe they should set up a sales channel with IBM!

Posted by the Brat