3D CAD NEWS

It is time for another episode of “Who Wants to Be Top Marketeer at Bentley!” This year’s contestant is a nice guy (they are all nice guys) named Edward Mueller, who comes in with the title Chief Marketing Officer. He’s been around IT marketeering for 20 years or so, his bio says. Most recently he was chief marketeer for Everdream; its dream came true recently when it was acquired by Dell Computer (which explains why he is available to Bentley; marketeers are always cast aside like yesterday’s newspaper in acquisitions).

The game works like this. We (virtually and metaphorically) shove Ed (Ed, can we call you Ed?) into a revolving door. Then the audience–our readers–start laying bets on how long he can last. Either Ed gets dizzy reviewing the marketing history at Bentley and jumps out the door immediately, or he gets pushed the first time Greg Bentley thinks revenue is slumping and blames it on whatever poor schulmp happens to be chief marketeer at the time. Either way, Ed is a short-timer and everybody down the marketeering chain of command at Bentley knows it.

Ed Mueller gets his shot at the Bentley Revolving Door any moment now.

It didn’t used to be this way. At one time Bentley’s chief marketeer was the one and only Grand Poobah of CAD Marketeers, the esteemed Yoav Etiel. He launched some promotional campaigns that to this day bring tears to the eye. Who can forget the beautiful and/or handsome models (some of them were both) in Viecon shirts at A|E|C SYSTEMS 2001? Who can forget the Bentley bus circling the convention center when Autodesk University was in Philadelphia? This was grand and heady marketeering, the kind of in-your-face promotions that skyrocketed Bentley sales in the 1990s. But even a Grand Poobah of Marketeers can’t last forever at Bentley. There was a power struggle over Viecon (their late entry in the online project management sweepstakes that soon after faded into oblivion), and Yoav Etiel became the first winner/loser (they are one in the same) of “Who Wants to Be Top Marketeer at Bentley!” Today Yoav Etiel is happy and successful, selling real estate in his native Israel when not introducing hot Israeli software prospects to VC in the USA.

So, rest at ease, Ed; there is life after Bentley. Just don’t count on much of a life while you are there.

 

I always enjoy the part of the annual PTC press/analyst conference when customers take the podium. They tell their story, give honest answers to pointed questions, and seem genuinely happy to be PTC customers. Of course, PTC wouldn’t bother to bring in grumpy customers, but that’s not my point. A new national study confirms what I see — customers really like PTC.

The CMO Council, an international organization of marketing executives, issued its annual ranking of customer affinity in the IT industry today. The report, “Customer Affinity Index of the Top 75 IT Brands Ranked by IT Buyer,” rates PTC in the top ten. It is the only CAD/PLM company on the list, and PTC outranks such IT leaders as IBM, Microsoft, Dell, and Oracle.

In the research study accompanying the ranking, the CMO Council suggests that customer affinity “surpasses brand awareness as the key predictor of purchasing decisions.” The Council says customers seek out companies that best align themselves with the customer’s priorities and needs.

The CMO Council conducted qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys of more than 1,500 key stakeholders in all major industries to analyze the interests of IT buyers. The customer affinity index assesses the strength of the customer/vendor relationship based on six key drivers:

• Market understanding and response to needs
• Product or service experience
• Brand perception and reputation
• Communications quality and frequency
• Accessibility and availability of support
• Corporate confidence, trust, and credibility

This blog finds it way too easy at times to have a bit of fun at PTC’s expense. It is a company that is willing to be “out there,” taking risks and showing a bit of edgyness and personality. It also has more direct competition than any other CAD/PLM company, since their product line scales from one user to 10,000. It is good to see any CAD company be honored by The CMO Council, and not really surprising that PTC is the one they chose.

Two months after shipping Rhino 4.0, publisher Robert McNeel & Associates finally got around to announcing the new product.

“I need to apologize for not telling everyone sooner that we were shipping Rhino 4.0,” explained Bob McNeel, McNeel’s CEO, in the press release. “Our plan was to inform the beta users first, followed by the registered Rhino users, and then the subscribers to our newsletter and the public, all within a few days, but by the time we let the beta and registered users know we were shipping, we were overwhelmed.”

Most CAD companies make a big production out of a product launch. Teams of marketing people, sometimes with the aid of an outside public relations firm, plan every detail. Bob McNeel runs his company a bit differently. Of the 45 or so employees in the Seattle headquarters, only two are dedicated marketing employees. They turn to a PR firm (CAD specialist StrategicReach of Denver) only occasionally. The majority (23) are programmers and related development staff.

I saw Bob McNeel last week at COFES and we talked about this “oh, by the way” launch announcement. He said they had all hands in shipping for weeks, trying to get out the orders that rushed in when they announced Rhino 4.0 to the beta users. “We literally didn’t have time to do anything else,” Bob McNeel said.“We were swamped.”

Now, about the product. McNeel says Rhino 4.0 “is the most significant new version in the history of Rhino.” There are over 800 new features and enhancements. If you want to catch up with it all, check out the video at www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm. If you plan to buy, there are 700 dealers worldwide with copies in stock. They found time to ship them some before the announcement, too.