From Design Collaboration to CAD Social Tools

August 15, 2012

Social is a magic word many people use nowadays. After social networks “grand-success”, many people in PLM industry are thinking how to apply the power of “social” to improve existing PDM and PLM. The topic that asked by most of the people is how to improve collaboration by applying some of know best practice developed by social networking.

AutoCAD Design Feed

I’ve been reading announcement made by Autodesk about AutoCAD WS Design Feed. Navigate to the following blog post to learn more. I found it quite interesting. Discussion feed became very popular tool in social collaboration. We can see examples of discussion threads in tools like Facebook and Twitter. Similar tools (but in the context of enterprise and business) are available in tools like Yammer and Salesforce.com, etc.

The idea of Design Feed is exactly that. Here is how it explained in AutoCAD WS Blog: Using the Design Feed you can attach a post to a specific point or area in your drawing to draw attention to a feature of your design and encourage discussion.

What I especially like in this tool is the idea of “context”. You can select a point of interest in the drawing such as entity or space area. Context makes the conversation powerful.

Design Collaboration Origins

“Collaboration” word is a tricky in PDM / PLM business. Companies really overused the purpose and meaning of what collaboration does. To me, collaboration was always the ability of people to work together. One of the earlier examples of design collaboration was presented by Dassault Systems in 3DLive back in 2006. Watch the following video for more details.

Pay attention how different people can collaborate on the context of 3D model. You can find a lot of similarities with “social discussion” tools.

“Design discussion” Origins

Another interesting example from the earlier days of social tools for CAD designers related to Vuuch. One of the early ideas of Vuuch is so-called design discussions or Facebook for files allowed to engineers and other people to create a “discussion” in the context of a specific CAD file. View Vuuch video that was made couple of years ago presenting this feature.

What is my conclusion? The value of marketing flyers and buzzwords is decreasing these days. It less matter to people how you call the tool. How to get a job done? Engineers and other people in a company are trying to answer to this question. I can see how social paradigm plays in collaborative and social tools. To provide context driven simple user experience seems to me a key. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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CAD Project Cloud Collaboration… What?

July 19, 2012

The life around us is changing fast. Consumerization. BYOD. Cloud. Social. We are in the middle of the biggest technological change that happens in front of our eyes. What does it mean for engineers? Apparently engineering needs are no much different from what it was 10 years ago. The fundamental need to work together (avoid word "collaboration"), exchange design (files, data?) and see the history of changes actually remain the same for a very long period of time. However, the life and environment around us are a bit different these days. The consumer behavior influenced our mind and push us to explore new opportunities.

I was reading SolidSmack’s blog post – GrabCAD Revamps to Push Out CAD Project Possibilities. This is not the first time I’m referencing GrabCAD on my blog. The dynamic and growing startup initially focused on creating of "Facebook for Engineers" recently shifted gears toward CAD collaboration. It looks to me the idea of collaboration and usage of 3DViewer, CAD history (versions) is a way to re-think the reality of cloud work for engineers? I found the following conclusion made by Josh Mings interesting:

Where could it go from here? Competition is heatin’ up in the web-based 3D collaboration scene, and it’s likely not going to slow down. GrabCAD has huge user base, the web presence and the combination of CAD library, 3D file viewing and private sharing, which makes it a very good resource for a project space–limited to an extent, but simple to use. There is no version tracking yet, but viewing at the ‘Files’ tab shows how it’s being pushed toward more organization and file options. But is version tracking really needed?

Josh is speaking about competition. So, I decided to take a look – who is around to do a similar type of job. I found few products and technologies.

Autodesk 360. New cloud tool coming from Autodesk. The idea behind Autodesk 360 is to provide unified cloud experience to people using CAD and other design tools. You can upload files to Autodesk 360, preview them and use basic collaboration.

BuzzSaw. Another product from Autodesk. BuzzSaw is focusing on collaboration around projects (mostly use in AEC and construction domains). The idea of project space and ability to upload files and make them available is a dominant one in BuzzSaw.

AutoCAD WS. This is another paradigm shift product coming from Autodesk (the WS stays for Web Services). In a nutshell, AutoCAD WS is Google Docs just working with CAD (DWG) files. It is on the cloud, and you can upload and download files. Mobile clients convert AutoCAD WS in a popular tool you can use when "on go".

n!Fuze. This is a relatively new product from Dassault Systems. Focus of n!Fuze is how to make SolidWorks CAD (but not only) files available and shareable between people.

3DVia. Online community created by Dassault System. People can upload CAD files and share them. Dassault sees 3DVia as a part of their future broad consumer strategy 3DSwYm (See what you mean). 3DVia is probably more useful when you work with CATIA. However, I’m not aware about limitations in working with other CAD systems as well.

In addition to these specific tools, I’d be mentioning few "generic purpose" technologies and products that can provide cloud, community and file sharing capabilities – DropBox, Google Drive, Sky Drive, Office 365.

What is my conclusion? I think, software for engineering industry is ready for the biggest "rethink impossible" moment these days. Challenge fundamentals. Achieve impossible by making things simple again. Will it be done by large companies or small startups? It really doesn’t matter. Winners will be companies that can adapt faster to new technological and business realities. Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Co-browsing and future of CAD design collaboration?

July 11, 2012

Experience. We love this word nowadays. I can hear many discussions about "experience" these days. The last five years of computing and web shown that "experience" is actually very important. The examples are going from iPod and mobile devices to complex web sites and social networks. CAD / PLM companies are also thinking about "experience". Earlier this year, Siemens PLM announced about the re-inventing of PLM experience with HD PLM. Few weeks ago, Dassault System announced about the new vision called3DEXPERIENCE platform.

However, I want to steer your attention in a bit different topic – co-browsing user experience. If you haven’t heard about that, navigate to the following link to learn more.

Co-browsing, in the context of web browsing, is the joint navigation through the Internet by two or more people accessing the same web pages at the same time. Early co-browsing was achieved by local execution of software that had to be installed on the computer of each participant. More advanced tools didn’t have to be installed, but still required local execution of software or at least web-browser plug-ins, extensions, or applets. Most tools were limited to a single user that was able to navigate, while the others could only watch.

I read an interesting announcement earlier today: Salesforce.com is acquiring GoInstant - startup developed a platform for shared co-browsing. No plug-ins, installations, working within the browser. On the following video, you can see how two people are working with co-browsing inside of Google+ Hangout.

GoInstant blog brings the following article – 7 ways to use co-browsing technology. One of them is collaboration. Here is a very interesting passage:

Collaboration. When collaborating on a website or web application, co-browsing makes it a more seamless experience because there’s no passing of control back and forth between participants. Everyone is able to engage in real-time and interact through the co-browse session.

Now just think about CAD instead of Google+ Hangout. The idea of co-browsing made me think about a potentially interesting value it can bring in improving collaboration. Imaging similar video to what you see above, but with CAD application showing multiple cursors from of different users working on the same design. The cloud future can be bright as well – the combination of CAD with co-browsing can give an additional level of simplification.

What is my conclusion? I think the idea of collaborative browsing can "hold the water". How many times you worked with shared screen on your computer? I did it many times. To have multiple engineers working on the same design can be an interesting option in your future CAD application in the browser. What is your take? Speak your mind…

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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PLM opportunity for new CAD heroes

July 2, 2012

Pivoting. Are you familiar with this term? In a modern startup lingua franca, it means the management methods of making course correction when developing products. This term was pioneered by Eric Ries – Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the author of the book "The Lean Startup". Randall Newton of GraphicSpeak mentioned this book in his blog postearlier last week – GrabCAD, Sunglass, and ThinkerCAD are leading a CAD industry pivot. The following passage caught my attention:

Today’s start-ups in 3D CAD have the same vision of 3D becoming commonplace, but the strategy they follow has made a sharp pivot away from delivering a software product. The new kids on the block are skipping the deliverable and putting the experience of using and working in 3D inside the browser. WebGL and HTML5 are the two ingredients of the secret sauce making this pivot possible. HTML5 is the current generation Web programming language; WebGL is an application programming interface (API) for rendering interactive 3D graphics and requires HTML5.

Speaking about "pivots", they are not all the same. In the following Forbes article you can see a classification of 10 different pivoting options – Zoom-in, Zoom-out, Customer Segment, Customer need, Platform, Business architecture, Value capture, Engine of growth, Channel, Technology. At the first look, you may think solutions mentioned by GraphicSpeak all belong to the "technology pivot". Here is the definition:

Technology pivot. Sometimes a startup discovers a way to achieve the same solution by using a completely different technology. This is most relevant if the new technology can provide superior price and/or performance to improve competitive posture.

In my view, many CAD innovations were introduced as "technology pivot". If you remember the move from UNIX workstations to PC and from 2D to 3D enabled by the power of computers and graphic technologies.

PLM – Zoom out pivot?

When thinking about new 3D experience and browser technologies, I came to the point that new CAD technologies have an option to navigate what they do to so-called "Zoom-out" pivot. Here is the definition of that pivot:

Zoom-out pivot. In the reverse situation, sometimes a single feature is insufficient to support a customer set. In this type of pivot, what was considered the whole product becomes a single feature of a much larger product?

An efficient access of CAD and 3D data is an important function in every PLM solution. To simplify the process of changes, manipulation, annotation and collaboration is crucial to deliver a good solution these days. New 3D CAD in-browser capabilities can be well positioned to provide an effective and practically available tool for everybody in the company (and not only to designers, as today’s 3D CAD systems deliver). It also will take the focus from "CAD in browser / cloud" discussion to something having much wider scope of deployment – product development processes.

What is my conclusion? Companies are interested in how to improve their product development processes. People are looking how to improve their experience. It seems to me zoom-out pivoting of 3D in the browser can deliver both. It still requires some technology prove to be done, so it will be very interesting to watch how in-browser CAD solution will become ubiquitous to delivery what companies and people want. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Communities and Let-go Threshold

June 28, 2012

Communities are booming these days. Social networks and Web 2.0 unlocked the potential of interaction online and the idea of gathering people in a community went to mainstream. However, the original idea has nothing common with web. We can go back to organization of elite clubs, unions, discussion groups and many others. The internet makes it easy, by allowing everybody sharing content and subscribe on changes. Nowadays, we are learning how addictive this type of behavior could be. Facebook’s statistics can give you an idea of that. If you interested to know more facts, navigate to the following Mashable article – How to Tell if You’re Addicted to Facebook. I found the following passage interesting:

“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study. Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.

Following public web, enterprise software companies are looking how to turn the power of communities to their advantages. The community of users was one of the most straightforward steps for many of them, but I don’t see it as a very successful one. Most of the discussion groups were limited to active users, which limit the ability to growth viral. Restrictions and social networks are not working well together.

I can see some interesting and innovative examples of community building in the space of CAD/PLM software. Aras Corp., a provider of enterprise open-source software is trying to leverage their wide free user base by organizing a community of so-called Aras Open Users. Navigate to the following link to read – Who is the member of Aras Open User Club. Aras is trying to addict users by free licensing and open resources helping to run a successful implementation. The following passage grabbed my attention:

Go to the self help section, absorb all of the information on our website, watch demos, check out the forums and learn all about the capabilities of Aras. Share this info with members of the tech team and eventual users to help them get familiar with Aras. Next, you need a roll out plan that includes how you intend to get everyone on board. The good news is that once your users understand their roles and how this powerful tool is going to help them get more done faster with better information, there will be no stopping them. Check aras.com for tips on roll out plans too.

Another example is the community of engineers built by GrabCAD. A startup company, GrabCAD is trying to follow "facebook" style allowing to engineers to upload and download CAD models for free. Funded by VCs and CAD industry veterans, GrabCAD demonstrates a very interesting way to organize engineers into community.

Together with some critics related to IP protection (read here), GrabCAD shows very impressive numbers – 250K registered engineers, 40K CAD models and 3M downloads.

What is my conclusion? I’m sure you’re familiar with "Let-go Threshold" term from your electricity school lessons. The ultimate question to all "community builders" is how to develop addiction to the network / community. Facebook did it. Some other social networks missed the point on their way and failed. In my view, the most successful communities were built around mainstream products such as SolidWorks and Autodesk. To have the right content is a key factor. A potential CAD / PLM community content is sensitive. Very often it related to IP ownership and company product development and manufacturing practices. It is not a simple place to innovate. Do you think "social innovation" is just in the early beginning of the innovation spiral? Will PLM companies be able to develop the volume of content going beyond "let-go threshold"? This is an interesting place to innovate. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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What is the future of PLM VARs?

June 22, 2012

Transformation is coming to many places these days. Look how the internet, mobile, cloud (and not only…) transformed our world. You can hardly can find a place that behaves similar to how it was back 10-15 years ago. However, wait a minute… What about CAD, PDM, PLM VARs? Are they the same as before? Our consumption behaviors are changing, the ways we are buying software are changing. Maybe it is a time to re-think the way we sell the software too?

I came to this topic few times before. Navigate to The future of PLM Consultancyand Will PLM Channels survive cloud era? to read my previous posts about that topic. Two main conclusions – 1/cloud is not destroying consultancy business; 2/the transformation of distribution and service channels will be impacted by cloud software.

Few days ago, I came across an interesting article – VARs want SuperVAD with sales and tech skills by CRN Sam Trendall. I can see the demand for technical skills as something very typical for Engineering and PLM sales channels. With the high level of product complexity and cloud service delivery, technical qualification will be one of the differentiation factors for VARs to compete. Another important service is go to market. The cost of customer acquisition is one of the most critical factors for successful cloud services’ sales. Here is an interesting quote from CRN article:

A survey of VARs across Europe, commissioned by VAD Exclusive Networks, finds that the big three distribution virtues coveted by resellers are, in order of importance: technical excellence; marketing support; and credit facilities. Some 70 per cent of respondents consider lead generation to be a value-added service of the utmost importance. Two-thirds said the same of the ability to act as a VAR’s proxy in technical pre-sales environments, while round-the-clock Level 1-2 post-sales support was highly prized by 64 per cent of resellers.

There are several companies experimenting with cloud PLM software – Autodesk (PLM 360), Dassault Systems and Arena. Siemens PLM and PTC are not providing any cloud services today. PTC Windchill hosted by IBM is probably an exclusion (I haven’t heard about it already long time). I never heard about SolidWorks VARs selling n!Fuze product. In my view, the most interesting place of experiments among VARs is Autodesk. How Autodesk will organize PLM 360 distribution and services? This is an interesting question to ask.

What is my conclusion? In my view, technical skills and online marketing services will be the differentiation factors for VARs in the future cloud PLM business. We are in the beginning of this process. Interesting and challenging time with lots of opportunities. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM: From “document-centric” to the future without files?

June 3, 2012

Files. It is so obvious, right? We are using files everywhere in our life. Documents, Pictures Photos, Excel spreadsheets, CAD files, Reports, etc. It is around all the time. New, Open, Save, Save As… It is easy. In design, engineering and manufacturing world, file is an important paradigm that holds many processes in organization. We use CAD system for design and store files on the disc, when we need to store information for a long time we think about file archives. When we need to exchange information, we use files to do so.

I wasn’t able to attend 3D CIC conference last month in Colorado, so I use twitter to be up to speed with discussions and topics. One of the topics that caught my attention (and actually was heavy presented) was about 3D PDF files. One of my twitting buddies, @evanyares posted the following comment comparing different standards.

What’s the difference between STEP, JT, and 3D PDF? 3D PDF is a document-centric standard, ideal for human consumption. #3DPDF

— evanyares (@evanyares) May 23, 2012

His statement about document-centric standards made me think about some trends related to documents and files. The history of computer file’s paradigm is going back to 1950. According to Wikipedia article

In an RCA (Radio Corporation of America) advertisement in Popular Science Magazine[1] describing a new "memory" vacuum tube it had developed, RCA stated: "…the results of countless computations can be kept "on file" and taken out again. Such a "file" now exists in a "memory" tube developed at RCA Laboratories. Electronically it retains figures fed into calculating machines, holds them in storage while it memorizes new ones – speeds intelligent solutions through mazes of mathematics."

File paradigm is continued to be the one understood the best by the majority of computer users in consumer space, but not only. Desktop engineering software (CAD, CAE, etc.) is using files for save and retrieve information. Files are used for archiving and data exchange. Because of simplicity, it well understood by everybody and gives a feeling of "information protection". Everybody can take files and store it in the computer, external drive, or elsewhere.

Web, Cloud and new paradigms

Nowadays days, we can see how old paradigms are changing with the introduction of modern web technologies. The re-imagination is coming from the web. Will it change "file" paradigm? What can replace the concept of "file". Is it going to be "database record", "object", etc. as it was dreamed by many CAD / PLM developers over the past two decades? Looking around on applications like Google Docs, Office 365 and many others, the concept of file becomes secondary. The interaction happens in the browser. Your activity can span across multiple devices. The concept of "file to store data" becomes obsolete. We need to find a better way to capture, store and retrieve information during design, manufacturing, maintenance and future use regardless on device and application. I’m not talking about "physical storage" where everything remains files or binary blocks anyway. I’m speaking more about logical paradigm supported by many applications. One of the attractive technologies to follow up these days is semantic web and linked data. It has been with us for the last 10-15 years and captured some interesting achievements already. You might be interested to follow SemTech Biz conference next week in San-Francisco, CA.

What is my conclusion? File was (and still is) the mainstream paradigm to keep the logic of information retrieval in most of engineering applications. However, in our outside web and consumer world, we are asking for URL and not for FileName to get access to the information we need. So, it is a time to re-imaging what we do. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture credit to Wikipedia Computer File article.

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GrabCAD + 3D Viewer = ?

May 30, 2012

Social, Community, Website, Engineers, Challenges, CAD, MCAD, 3D Viewer… Everybody in CAD/PLM business understand, viewer is an important component of design collaboration.

So, what happened? Read yesterday announcement made by GrabCAD here. GrabCAD is going to 3D by adding viewing capabilities to their website. Here are few passages from GrabCAD blog about new functionality.

Share your models with anyone in 3 dimensions? Check. Pin annotations right on the surface of a model to share advice and ideas with other engineers? Check. GrabCAD’s new in-browser 3D viewer is a huge step toward seamless collaboration and sharing for mechanical engineers and designers.

According to SolidSmack publication, GrabCAD developed their own viewer. I didn’t find a confirmation for that on GrabCAD website. Josh Mings of SolidSmack compared it with Web 3D:

Wow, when I said Web 3D was heating up, I wasn’t kidding. You know GrabCAD is always cooking up new features, but this is a delightful surprise. Today, they launch their own web-based 3D Viewer available right inside the GrabCAD interface to view 3D files and collaborate with others. Here’s the sneak peak.

Actually, I thought Web 3D was branded by Bernard Charles of DS as part of 3DVIA introduction. However, it won’t decrease the importance of 3D viewing for engineers and other people handling 3D models.

What is “in the box”?

In a nutshell, GrabCAD provides the ability to view and annotate CAD models you uploaded to GrabCAD website. Viewer supports STL files and runs in any WebGL enabled browser. GrabCAD automatically converts files to STL (15’000 files already converted according to GrabCAD). Here is what GrabCAD viewer supposed to do:

Collaborate with engineers on projects you’re working on by annotating pins right on the model
Share your models securely with clients, manufacturers, or anybody without CAD software
Check out all public models on GrabCAD without downloading them

Few limitations that may disappoint some users. IE explorer is not supported, for the moment. Automatic conversion of file STL can go wrong and you will be requested to make a manual STL file upload. Speed can be vary and depend on STL file size and connection speed.

From “Facebook” to 3D collaboration business

GrabCAD expansion from community website sharing CAD models to 3D collaboration confirms that company is searching how to provide more services to monetize website performance. Couple of weeks ago, Hardi Meybaum, GrabCAD CEO stated that collaboration service becomes one of the most important one – …the company now plans to launch what could become the focal point of its business: a service that aims to change the way engineers and their customers collaborate on designs….

In my view, GrabCAD is challenged by how to monetize the tremendous success in making 200K engineers to register on their website and upload 40K free CAD models. Funded by few institutional investors, GrabCAD has an access to money that allows them to experiment with different directions.

Competition

By stepping into 3D Collaboration, GrabCAD will face more competition. Nobody has a vision for Facebook for engineers. However, to collaborate and share models in 3D is less unique value proposition, in my view.Autodesk 360, SolidWorks n!Fuze, CADFaster, etc. This is a short list of public cloud-based collaboration tools. When you turn to “on premise” solutions, the number of tools will only increase. What will be GrabCAD differentiation among all these products? Usability? Price? Community? It is an interesting question to ask.

What is my conclusion? Viewer is a cool feature. By adding it, GrabCAD will “grab” people to spend more time on the website.However, pivoting is the name of the game. GrabCAD + 3D Viewer = Pivoting.The question of GrabCAD business model is still not answered, in my mind. If GrabCAD focus is on helping engineers in manufacturing companies to collaborate, GrabCAD will be clearly moving closer to PLM trajectory and compete with other cloud-based PLM offerings. Otherwise, Hardi Meybaum and his team have more surprises in the box to come later. Time will show…

Best, Oleg

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Venture Capital and the future of Cloud

May 9, 2012

Cloud is hyping. One of the indicators is to watch if VC money is following in the direction of the cloud computing and cloud software. I’m not pretending to analyze trends of venture capital – this is clearly “beyond beyond PLM” capacity. At the same time, the following article caught my attention earlier last week - Future of Cloud Survey Shows significance of Open Source by North Bridge. For those of your not aware about NB, you can take a look on their portfolio page. You can find that NB invested in several CAD-related companies in the past - SolidWorks (sold to Dassault System), Revit Technology (sold to Autodesk), SpaceClaim, Newforma and some others.

NorthBridge seems to be shifts their focus to cloud computing. Navigate your browser to the following link to explore the Future of Cloud Computing. Don’t miss their twitter account - @futureofcloud. The article I was mentioned earlier speaks about of the survey NB made related to the cloud computing in 2011. Here are the most interesting passages I found there.

We found 40% of respondents are only experimenting with cloud computing at this point. Another 26% of survey respondents reported they are waiting for more maturity in the market before adopting a cloud strategy. In terms of current cloud use, 13% indicated complete confidence for mission critical applications, while 11 percent of respondents cited usage spikes. This shows that while cloud computing is indeed just getting started for a majority of the market, there is current production use of cloud computing that is significant…. The significance of saving money with cloud computing was reinforced by the fact that 55% of respondents believe the cloud has a lower total cost ownership (TCO) and only 13% indicating a higher TCO in the cloud.

NorthBridge is running a new survey - 2012 NorthBridge Future of Cloud Computing. Navigate here if you want to share your opinion.

What is my conclusion? Engineering, manufacturing and enterprises is a complex space characterized by slow speed of changes and sophisticated dependencies and eco-system. It is interesting to see how VC long time invested in companies in the enterprise domain shifts their interest to cloud computing. Actually, I can see it as a promising fact that can create an alternative to the kingdom of four big companies in this space. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Freebie. NorthBridge didn’t pay me to write about their cloud initiative.

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A moment before CAD files cloud mess…

May 3, 2012

It is hard to find a day without new announcement or breaking news related to the cloud these days. Companies are running fast to catch "a place under a cloud". The debates about the cloud are growing. Those of your reading my blog regularly, already had a chance to read multiple posts I published about the cloud. Maybe before continue to read, I’d recommend you to navigate to the following post – Product Lifecycle Data and Cloud Trap Debates. I tried to present a balanced view on advantages and risks related to cloud solutions these days.

I want to talk about CAD and the cloud or even more specific – CAD files and the cloud. Two leading companies in CAD space – Autodesk and Dassault Systems are presenting solutions allowing to store (or even synchronize) CAD files to the cloud. Dassault was probably pioneering this solution with SolidWorks n!Fuze. However, Autodesk clearly outperformed Dassault System by introducingAutodesk 360 providing 3GB of free storage for every AutoCAD user as well as other features – viewing, collaboration and sharing capabilities. Another Autodesk product – AutoCAD WS can store drawings directly to the cloud (I think both AutoCAD WS and Autodesk 360 paths need to converge somehow in the future).

The ability to store and sync CAD files using cloud services and storage is a powerful option. At the same time, the "Save As To Cloud" option is not much different from "Save As File". Everybody knows how messy file vaults look like in every company. Dou know how many CAD files are stored on local hard drives, USB discs, network storages in your company. The amount of un-managed files and data is growing. For the last 15-20 years, we didn’t succeed to create a reliable data-management option for all these files. There is a potential danger that all this "file mess" will be flowing to the cloud gates and will turn into CAD cloud mess. In my view, it creates an interesting opportunity to manage cloud-gates in more reliable ways to get data organized and prevent messy file uploads. It is a complicated problem, and it will require dedicated work of vendors to make it right. Do you remember Apple mobile.me failure? I can imagine similar situation happens with any CAD cloud synchronization features.

What is my conclusion? Cloud is a powerful technology. Engineers, architects and other CAD users are sensitive to information. The ability of cloud services to create a mess can put a potential of cloud services at risk. CAD vendors need to bring a solution that will allow to cloud CAD file storage to become manageable and reliable. Otherwise, we are at risk to say – "It is not a technology stupid". Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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