Tag Archives: Hirschtick

Onshape: I have seen it and it is good!

January 21, 2015 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies Tags: , , , Leave a comment

21 Jan 2015

I cannot yet discuss Onshape details, having agreed, as did all others who viewed the product, to an all-encompassing non-disclosure agreement.

But surely, others must have noticed the recent activity from Onshape. After more than two years of secrecy, their executives and others in the company are finally reaching out to the public. Just last week I had three calls from Onshape execs, all wanting to make sure I was aware of their product beta. Within the past two weeks they have started a blog, which now has two posts. See it at www.onshape.com. The first posted just two weeks ago was from Jon Hirschtick, Founder and Chairman of the Board at Onshape. A second blog post from Dave Corcoran, Co-Founder and the Vice President of Research and Development at Onshape reveals some new faces among the development staff along with a remark about the company’s cloud centric approach.

I must admit being somewhat skeptical when I heard the new company was founded. After all, after being around the CAD business for more than 25 years, what could possibly be new? Yet I was still frustrated after these many years with some CAD software systems general fundamentals: the software was hard to use, PDM was a pain in the butt to use, the software was still too costly and often unreliable, all vendors still wanted to lock in their users and multi-CAD usage was rare, new releases became more and more difficult to install because existing data needed to be “migrated”, PDM’s big brother (PLM) promised the moon but seldom delivered without great expense and manpower, the benefits of cloud computing was relegated to special cases because the software was designed for interactive desktop computing.

Does Onshape solve all these BIG problems? I can’t divulge any details yet, but some are being directly addressed. You can get a few clues if you carefully read Dave’s blog; there you will find some hints about where Onshape is heading.

With all this recent activity my guess is that Onshape is getting ready for a public announcement.

More to follow.

SolidWorks founders start new company

November 1, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 11 Comments

11/01/12: You heard it first here! Earlier today I received a call from John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks. John explained that he and five of the original founders of SolidWorks started a new company that will explore and develop solutions for the product development space. He shared with me that this includes: Jon Hirschtick, Dave Corcoran, Scott Harris, and Tommy Li.

Hirschtick, Harris, and Li were among the original founders of SoldWorks. McEleney joined a few years later. Corcoran led product development, while Harris was a key architect. In the early years, I was most impressed with the way the entire team was focused on a single perspective and all pulled together to accomplish their common goal. Since then I have seen many a company flounder, not because their product was flawed, but because the team was unable to work cohesively together.

McEleney further explained that the company has just been initiated today. They are obviously, in the super early stages of development. John would not discuss their products. He said they are still exploring many alternatives.

He went on to say that he was contacting many of the people in the CAD and product development space who will be able to promote the fact that their company was beginning its development. People like myself.

With a team like this, I don’t doubt that they can be successful. Hmmm, but what will they turn out? Keep tuned for further information.

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