Tag Archives: Onshape

Andreessen Horowitz $80 Million Funding in Onshape is a BIG deal

September 27, 2015 By in CAD Tags: , , 2 Comments

27 Sep 2015

During a conversation I had with John McEleney, President of Onshape last Monday, he told me why it was a big deal to Onshape.

Onshape was not actively looking for additional investment. Their original investment of some $60 million was sufficient for at least the next year. Rather, Andreessen Horowitz approached them. Of course, McEleney was excited that Onshape was able to more than double its investment, and with the backing of Andreesen Horowitz, raised some $80 million in the round.

What is very attractive is that this investment round comes from the leading high tech investment firm and they get why Onshape is different. You can read about why Andreesen invested in Onsape from Peter Levine’s article entitled “CAD Emerges from the Stone Age to Finally Join the Mobile Era.” Levine is a partner at Andreesen Horowitz. Levine, in the article claims that Onshape truly changes the game in CAD for the first in the last 20 years. Not that the last two decades have not contributed substantially to the field; it’s just that this time has been spent working with the same old, stand alone computer technology. In this new era, systems that embrace document sharing, collaboration, cloud storage, and being mobile-native will rule the roost. Of course this perfectly describes the path taken by Onshape.

What’s surprising to me is that none of Onshape’s competitors seem to have any existing or planned offerings in this arena. It’s not like this is a big surprise either. We have known about Onshapes plans for several years now. I guess, as has been common in the past, it may take several more years, and substantial revenue loss before they wake up to these rapidly approaching changes.

As always, I welcome comments.

Ray Kurland

The future is cloud-y for engineering data management

February 8, 2015 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Feb 2015

Lately I have been deluged with the announcement of or introduction to a series of cloud based data management systems for design engineering that are also focusing on collaboration. I plan this blog to be the first in a series that explores new PDM/PLM (PxM) solutions for product design.

Before I begin, we need to clarify the differences between PDM and PLM. PDM manages design changes during product development while PLM manages engineering and other changes made after the production release of the product for manufacturing and other downstream processes. Using this definition, PDM can be used to store all sorts of information during the design or work-in-process stage. Such information might include, but not be limited to: product specs, preliminary designs, analyses and simulation, product versions, QC specs, engineering BOMs, material types, etc. PLM manages engineering and other changes made after the release of the product from engineering. PLM systems might include PDM data managed during design as well as other data, such as, manufacturing BOMs, manufacturing instructions, NC data, service tracking, cost data, customer level documentation, etc. I think you get the picture.

PTC’s recent announcement of PTC PLM Cloud, a webinar I attended about GrabCAD Workbench and Onshape’s inherent use of a cloud-based solution — all piqued my interest. I began wondering about the differences between them and how one might choose a solution for a mid sized firm. One obvious differentiator is how cloud based PxM software connects to CAD software, be it desktop CAD or cloud based CAD. By the way, if you have not seen Onshape’s Dave Corcoran’s blog about the “The blue screen of death,” then I urge you to read it now. http://www.onshape.com/cad-blog. Corcoran discusses some of the benefits of a cloud based PxM – CAD implementation.

A true cloud based system allows full use of easily extensible computational capability and virtually unlimited storage

A PxM system cloud based system may not be much different from the tired old server based software that has been promoted for years. Adding a web based interface and hierarchical data storage in the cloud, masks an antiquated architecture. The old approach of bolting external data management software into CAD simply does not work well enough. It’s too laborious, takes extra time, and makes little use of design info developed automatically during the design cycle. It’s lack of adoption to date verifies this assumption.

A true cloud based system should be radically different in architecture allowing full use of cloud system flexibility. For instance, one reason I always disliked the previous generation of PDM/PLM was their outdated reliance on text-based interfaces. I would expect modern PxM systems to be graphically oriented offering comprehensible and visual navigation within the product structure. It should offer a tight connection to related CAD systems and automate much of the data management function. Automatic backup and easy restore of historical data are mandatory functions, as are easily distributed design among partners along with IP (intellectual property) protection.

The vendors are all moving quickly to position (or re-position) their PxM systems as cloud based

The plethora of cloud based data management systems for engineering and CAD include the following (plus some I haven’t yet discovered): Autodesk PLM 360, Onshape, GrabCAD Workbench, PTC PLM Cloud, and Kenesto as well as Dropbox and related cloud drive systems. More traditional software is offered by ARAS, Dassault Systemes and Siemens PLM software. What follows is a summary of how some of these vendors are positioning their software.

  • Onshape promotes distributed design. Using cloud based CAD along with a fully integrated cloud PDM system allows a brand new perspective on how modern CAD systems should work. Essentially all costs for compute power and data storage are greatly minimized, easily increased, even ”borrowed” for a short duration.
  • GrabCAD’s Workbench calls itself “The fast, easy way to manage and share CAD files without PDM’s cost and hassle.” The company goes on to state “Workbench allows teams on any CAD system to work smoothly together by syncing local CAD files to cloud projects, tracking versions and locking files to prevent conflicts.” The enterprise version costs $89 per month.
  • PTC recently announced PTC PLM Cloud, stating “this solution leverages the power of PTC Windchill, while simplifying PLM adoption with a flexible, hosted subscription offering, deployable at a pace that matches the needs of SMBs.” I am not exactly sure what this means, but expect to clarify this when I speak with PTC this week.
  • Very soon, Kenesto plans to announce a cloud based system that, Steve Bodnar – VP of Strategy, calls a terrific solution for small shops, enabling them to replace their server based, in-house error prone, file based systems with a much higher function cloud based system that requires minimal change to the way CAD users work, yet improves the reliability of their data management.

Alas, how can an engineering organization differentiate which PxM technology to buy and invest their time and money in? More detail about various implementations and my assessment of them will be forthcoming in future blogs.

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Ray Kurland — I have returned to consulting and analyzing systems for TechniCom, from an early and erstwhile retirement.

References:

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.