[Source: SOLIDWORKS]
SOLIDWORKS CEO Manish Kumar sheds light on the new sales strategy and shares what’s in store for SOLIDWORKS 2025.
SOLIDWORKS 2025, the latest version of the popular CAD program, will be released on November 17, 2024. There are some interesting updates coming, and one interesting update is already here: the ability to buy SOLIDWORKS directly online.
If that doesn’t sound all that interesting, it’s probably because you’re so used to the modern world of software-as-a-service (SaaS). You can subscribe to almost any SaaS app simply by clicking a button on the developer’s website. How else would you do it?
For almost 30 years, the only way to buy SOLIDWORKS—or even see its price—was through a SOLIDWORKS reseller, also known as a value-added reseller or VAR. Now, as of September 10, SOLIDWORKS has modernized its approach to software sales: you can just go online and buy it yourself.
“There is full transparency of the price. You can go and buy these licenses and it gets delivered to you right away without any wait whatsoever,” Manish Kumar, SOLIDWORKS CEO, told Engineering.com.
It’s a welcome change, but there are some important caveats.
SOLIDWORKS 2025: Versions, tiers and pricing
If you’re not one of the 7.5 million existing SOLIDWORKS users, or you haven’t upgraded in a while, you may be dazed by the variety of packages you can buy. There are three main versions of SOLIDWORKS, which allow you to access the software in different ways: 3DExperience SOLIDWORKS, SOLIDWORKS with Cloud Services, and Solidworks Cloud Offer.
Both 3DExperience SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS with Cloud Services are further divided into tiers of functionality: Standard, Professional and Premium. SOLIDWORKS 2025 will introduce yet another tier, Ultimate. We’ve crunched the numbers, and that’s a total of nine variants (not even counting the special versions on offer for students, academics and hobbyists).
The good news is that you can now easily buy all of these variants online, and see comparisons between them at a glance.
But all these variants have one thing in common. Kumar describes two main flavors of the CAD software: SOLIDWORKS with the platform, and SOLIDWORKS on the platform—the platform being Dassault Systèmes’ 3DExperience. Whichever SOLIDWORKS package you buy, 3DExperience is a constant.
“The beauty is that any of these applications, they save the data on the platform,” Kumar explained. “And any other application that is connected to the 3DExperience platform will be able to open that data.”
But what about the VARs?
Kumar is quick to emphasize that SOLIDWORKS resellers, of which there are more than 400 worldwide, aren’t going anywhere.
“For clients who need consultative selling, we are going to engage with them using our reseller channel,” Kumar said. Furthermore, everyone who buys SOLIDWORKS online will still be connected with a VAR for “onboarding and lasting support,” according to a SOLIDWORKS FAQ on how to buy the software.
And despite the new way to buy SOLIDWORKS, some users still won’t have a choice. If you need more than three licenses, you’ll have to go through a reseller. If you want any additional Dassault Systèmes software to go along with SOLIDWORKS, you’ll have to go through a reseller.
“They are our strength,” Kumar said of the VARs. “We are counting on them in order to ensure that while we serve the lowest possible end of the market, they help us serve the mid and high end.”
What’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2025
What else is in store for SOLIDWORKS? Kumar described his favorite features of the upcoming SOLIDWORKS 2025 release in a recent SOLIDWORKS blog post.
Kumar is particularly excited about collaboration and performance improvements, such as new multi-approval timestamps that will automatically appear on drawings, and new real-time notifications of status updates. Kumar also says that SOLIDWORKS 2025 will include part and assembly performance improvements, such as a faster way to select edges for the chamfer command and the ability to copy assembly components with their associated mates.
Read the rest of this story at ENGINEERING.com
