DWG editing goes Web

It seems that the battle over the DWG format is still raging - Autodesk claim it's
there's, others protest. Autodesk tries to copyright and protect it, others protest and to be honest, it's a battle I'm not really interested in. DWG was an abbrieviation long before the advent of CAD and the copy of BS308 (for those non-brits out there, this is a British Standard for Technical Drawing) proves it - job done.

Anyway, what is interesting is that SolidWorks Labs just launched an online hosted DWG editor called BluePrint Now and it looks pretty slick. With many talking about delivery of CAD over the web, then this is a good indicator of what the first batch of tools will look, feel and smell like. Its built using the Microsoft's SilverLight technology and the UI is nifty, if a little clunky (as all over the web, CAD apps have been to date). But does it work? I'm going to spend some more time playing with it, but first impressions are that it has some basic tools, lines, circles, arc etc. You can output the drawings as PDF, as DWG again (useful if you've made an edit) from AutoCAD R14, right through to the latest rev - or you can email a link to share it with someone.

SolidWorks DWG data - works fine - as you would expect.

I did try loading some data, both from Inventor as AutoCAD DWGs and from SolidWorks. The app has a 1Mb file limit, which is going to be pretty quickly hit if you've got any data of any size. It loaded the SolidWorks DWGs fine, displayed them after a few hiccups but you could actually pan and zoom the drawing, add some basic detail. Same for the Inventor generated data.

Inventor DWG file, uploaded to Blueprint Now - seems to work just fine

But this isn't the point of Labs projects. these things are put out there to show the vendor's future thoughts - whether they actually reach fruition and become a shipping product remains to be seen. Oh and I just realised two things - Yes, I tried this using Safari and Yes, it works on OSX.

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Future CAD: Download or Dealer?

Many of the people in CAD dealerships have been selling CAD for many years. While Channel managers and sales folks at the CAD vendors come and go with the seasons, these dealership principles are the main industry constant. The sales of whatever CAD system they have affiliated themselves with puts bread on their tables and hopefully pays their mortgages. These people are business folks that have to take a long hard look at how they can grow their businesses with the least risk and in a controlled, sustainable way. This is typically at odds with the rate at which the CAD vendors want them to grow. Of course it is also possible to grow your CAD dealership through developing more added-value services, or selling additional products, perhaps in a different market segment - but then this does not favour the CAD vendor, as they want to sell more boxes of branded product.

So there is a lot of pressure on dealers at the moment to increase sales, hire more staff and be more aggressive about new-seat business. However, long-term, I see trouble on the horizon. The route to the customer will, in the next 2 or 3 years change, as the old Value Added Reseller (VAR) model will have to sit with Web-based delivery and the ability to order CAD products and services direct over the web. No vendor will talk at any length on how the existing channel and direct downloads will work, yet they are all developing web delivery businesses.

It all boils down to the value that the vendors see in having an experienced channel and the revenue they want to give to these dealers in an increasingly web-delivered world. Perhaps being a big dealer, with many expensive sales staff, will be a disadvantage in the future? Can the dealers trust the vendors to look after their interests?

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