CoCreate Americas Users Conference 1999

CoCreate America's Users Conference, Broomfield, Colorado August 9-13, 1999

Report from "CAD Days" (August 11-13)

The mistake we made when we attended last year's conference was that we arrived only a matter of hours before the show started. That meant trying to get accustomed to the altitude of the Rockies, the time difference and the travelling time (about 20 hours). This time Anne and I decided to take a few days off before the conference so we would be relaxed and ready for all the presentations, workshops, parties, dinners etc. That was the plan.

Since we had so much time we decided we'd drive to California! We had 5 days. Now on the map the distance from Denver to LA is about 14 inches. Needless to say we weren't exactly relaxed and ready to absorb the conference to the full! After 3000 miles, Ouray, Mesa Verde, "Four Corners", Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Mojave desert, Venice Beach (good surfing!), Beverley Hills, Hollywood, (more desert), Flagstaff, Meteor Crater, Gallup, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs we were ready to go home! But we decided to stick it out for the conference - it looked as though the food would be good.

The first 2 days were dedicated to PDM and WorkManager so there isn't much to tell about that. The workshops and hands-on sessions ran throughout the week.

The CAD sessions began with "business updates" from CoCreate management. We were introduced to Jim Handley who will be leading a significantly improved marketing effort targeted particularly toward OneSpace. Jim has worked for MDD earlier and will be forgiven for telling us that he had worked with ME10 and ME50 many years ago! Welcome back Jim.

Tilman Schad took over and began describing the path CoCreate was now taking by "Defining the way products are developed in Internet Times". It is clear CoCreate is not letting web technology get the better of them. He continued being very honest about the market he is fighting in. CoCreate now accept the situation where they are not, and aren't going to try to be, market leaders in CAD. CoCreate have had their "best year ever". ME10 is still going strong (strong as it ever was). A Linux version is on its way and SolidDesigner is improving with its market acceptance. The Japanese market is doing "fine now" and the PDM area is OK.

The picture isn't always as bright - explaining about VDS (Visionary Design Systems) having recently stopped supporting CoCreate products! VDS' old customers don't have to worry.

Schad went on further to describe more of CoCreate's strategy and the future of CAD in general. He told us of "market overcrowding" and how to progress in tough times. In order to improve there are 3 alternatives:

An example of other products having redefined (or deleted) a market he said was the mobile-phone. This product has totally and irreversibly "redefined" the pager market! A small, user-friendly gadget does what a pager has done but, lets you talk too.

CAD has led engineers away from the drawing board. No longer do they gather around and solve problems socially, in groups. CoCreate are redefining the CAD market by bringing back the "ability to bring people together and solve problems together - teamwork".

This was a good start. ME10 was up next. I had been hoping to see the new guy in Sindelfingen, Wolfgang Stanik. He has been leading the ME10 offensive for about a year. For some reason he didn't turn up. Apparently he had been in Denver but had to return to Germany. Now that was a disappointment. OK so he's a busy guy! In his place jumped Uli Mahle. That wasn't so bad - this guy knows his ME10! He has been in the ME10 driving seat before. Uli started giving us some statistics on the 2D CAD market. It was difficult to get a clear picture of the situation because of Germany's position. Regarding "awareness" in the 2D market, 19% know of CoCreate. In the area of "satisfaction" between the 2 big players in the 2D world, ME10 and AutoCAD, ME10 wins in 4/5 categories. Only in data-exchange did ME10 come out behind. This was now improved with the implementation of new dxf/dwg translators. On the whole Uli was very pleased with ME10's showing.

Migration from 2D to 3D was his next subject. (Remember this man is in the 3D business.) He did admit though that the growth rate of 2D seats is 15% over the last 2 years (is that in Germany?).The ratio between 2D and 3D is 6:1 and that (obviously) most mechanical design is accomplished with 2D CAD!

After a few more slides on strategy it was down to the bit we had all been waiting for: ME10 NEWS! We all know the story about 9.0, Windows and all that. The big news is release 10.0 - due out in October THIS YEAR!

As this site is primarily concerned with ME10. I won't go into detail about the other "business updates". The news though on the SolidDesigner front though is "Windows". An "alpha" version was demonstrated and looked very, very good. The guy running the demo (Markus Kuehl) agreed with me that the SD Windows implementation looked better than the ME10. There was still a lot of work to do, especially on the filing interface but, it looks very promising.

The ordinary sessions were dominated by SolidDesigner, SharedApp, Design Management etc. The number of parallel sessions just keeps increasing. It's impossible to get to them all and you have to be careful in your selection. I tend to go for the non-HP, non-CoCreate sessions. That way I stand a better chance of getting some good ideas from those in an environment more like mine. HP is OK, but they all seem to do the same thing(?) The problem this year was that very few "independent" presentations were given. The most notable sessions I attended were:

(The only way you people out there are going to get the full story is to attend yourselves next year and take along a couple of colleagues.)

It was a shame that the vendor fair closed on Wednesday. It meant we had only about 1 hour to go around all the stands. I could have used about 4-5hours. Still it meant you had to be efficient. It was fun to talk to some of the VARs who were using "Assembly Detail" - it meant they at least knew who I was! VDS have left quite a whole in the vendor fair. It's up to firms like United Systems, Pentagon etc. to take advantage of the situation. To those vendors who donated the great prizes - thanks (but next year add an extra prize to allow for Eddie - that way we all stand a chance!)

The main social event was the "outdoor activities" and dinner. The "collaboration" theme to the games of course meant that we had to learn how to communicate with one another in order to solve the rather difficult tasks. It was both exciting and exhausting "debugging" the "numbers" and amazing that we managed the "toxic waste" game. We had a fantastic team. It seems it is possible to work with efficiently with CoCreate (people). And it's always possible to improve on an existing system.

The dinner afterwards was a good chance to renew acquaintances from last year. It was also the time for the prize draws and presentations. Congratulations to James (Berkeley National Labs) on winning the SD training and Theresa Wrazel for the Imagenation license. Eddie Zihlman walked away with a(nother) digital camera which he deserves for all the work he has done for the User Group. Towards the end of the dinner it was "macro competition" time. The SD winner was Louis Barinaga. Congratulations. The ME10 winner was me. Congratulations! The winner from the "best of the rest" was Eddie!!!! (Does anyone know this guy?) Having won for "Best ME10 macro" I decided to include a demo of "Accuracy Advisor" in my Friday presentation. That seemed to be appreciated. It was an honour to win again.

It was a great surprise to meet a few new faces from Germany. The names weren't new - the new websites springing up take care of that. And the important thing - it's not what you know - it's who you know!

As it turned out, it wasn't just the food that was good. The User Group and CoCreate must be congratulated on what must be the best CoCreate conference yet. Well attended by both customers and CoCreate engineers and management it was easy to get the answers we needed and to voice our own opinions. A special thanks to Brad Goettemoeller who will be leaving CoCreate very soon. Great job.

To those of you out there who have never attended a CoCreate event: Go for it! You will meet enthusiastic people with great ideas and years of experience. (Sshhh! Don't tell anyone - it's great fun too!)