Refusal To Report The Truth On Siemens Solid Edge

A few people in the CADCAM press have reported that one or two accounts have dumped SolidWorks and changed to Solid Edge ST. Siemens Solid Edge ST US marketing have over-hyped this change as being something that's very significant. In the mean time, in the UK, this claim is being made and no one in the CADCAM press is talking about it or attempting to see if it's really true:

 Over 300 Licenses Of Solid Edge Have Changed To SolidWorks In The Last 6 Months

"Recently, SolidWorks UK has seen a growing number of migrations from Solid Edge, swapping-out over 300 licenses in the last 6 months."

Solid Edge ST is a decent product but it continues to suffer from what has been a very long struggle with exceptionally poor US led marketing and development. With the exception of a couple of people in the CADCAM press no one wants to hold Siemens US management responsible for how poorly Solid Edge ST is marketed and developed.

Here are some of the glaring problems with Solid Edge ST:

Unlike SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge ST doesn't have a broad spectrum product line / doesn't have a complete set of tools available that run inside of it. Solid Edge US management loves to do videos where they get Solid Edge fanboi's to make bogus claims about Solid Edge having the same kind of full product line that SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor has. The fact is that no CAM runs inside of Solid Edge ST, no CMM inspection program run inside of Solid Edge ST, etc. SolidWorks has at least ten third party CAM applications that run inside of it and Autodesk Inventor has several integrated CAM programs that run inside of it as well. Siemens steadfastly refuses to port their own powerful NX CAM so that it can run inside the Solid Edge ST user interface leaving Solid Edge ST badly crippled when it comes to manufacturing.

Update 6-19-2012:

This is what's now being reported on the internet as well as what's been reported to me by several people. All the stories seem to match indicating what I've known all along that Solid Edge ST continues to be very badly mismanaged and developed.

The Siemens Solid Edge ST Reseller Problem:

Under new Siemens Solid Edge ST management Solid Edge ST resellers were asked to complete and return a document sent to them by Siemens Solid Edge ST management asking how they planned to market Solid Edge ST. Resellers who submitted good proposals were allowed to keep selling Solid Edge ST. All others lost their reseller status.

Siemens Solid Edge ST management never told Solid Edge ST customers that they would be losing their reseller. When this went down there were a lot of Solid Edge ST users who felt Siemens screwed them by removing the resellers that they got great support from and never informing them. Many of these Solid Edge ST resellers provided excellent service before they were dumped.

Most of the resellers dumped appear to be outside of the US.

What now exists is a situation where you have very angry ex Solid Edge ST resellers and lots of very pissed off Solid Edge ST customers who lost resellers that gave very competent Solid Edge support. I'm hearing that some of these resellers were replaced by resellers whose business is mainly NX CADCAM and who have no idea how to support Solid Edge ST.

Nowhere has due diligence been done and reported by the CADCAM press. Most of the CADCAM press are now singing the praises of Solid Edge ST new management telling you how all is wonderful and all is well and that real progress is being made, which is total bullshit.
  
Update 6-13-2012:

No CAM company that I've spoken with has had any interest in creating a CAM program to run inside of Solid Edge ST. The reason always given is they have no faith in Solid Edge US management gaining serious market share with Solid Edge ST. Now comes rumor of Siemens having to pay Geometric to port CAMWorks to the Solid Edge ST user interface. That Siemens would rather pay Geometric instead of porting NX CAM to Solid Edge shows where Siemens priorities are and what program Siemens would rather sell.

After five releases of the ST version of Solid Edge its user interface is still very poorly done. Unfortunately most of the CADCAM press has never taken the time to try SpaceClaim. SpaceClaim's user interface makes the Solid Edge ST user interface look like an outdated, clumsy  cobbled together legacy code mess.

Check out this video of SpaceClaim in action to get an idea how much better SpaceClaim's user interface is and why it's so much more productive than the Solid Edge ST user interface currently is:

There is no devoted website for the Solid Edge ST educational version. After doing the right thing and finally making an educational version of Solid Edge ST available,  Solid Edge management has failed and continues to fail at using the educational version to help drive new interest and new sales of Solid Edge ST. A user to user support forum should be attached to such a website and not hidden away like it is now. Tons of videos  showing off features as well as tutorials should be on such a website.

Instead of marketing Solid Edge ST properly, Siemens US management relies heavily on FUD marketing against SolidWorks claiming a kernel change is going to badly hurt SolidWorks users and that this is why SolidWorks users should switch to Solid Edge. Many SolidWork users would be better off switching to Solid Edge but it's not because of a kernel change. A kernel change isn't going to happen with legacy SolidWorks. Even though Siemens Solid Edge management knows that legacy SolidWorks isn't going to get a kernel change they have no intention of letting the truth get in their way of using FUD marketing to try and desperately gain market share for Solid Edge ST. Using FUD against SolidWorks isn't going to work and it's no substitute for proper marketing.

Karsten Newbury is the man in charge for Siemens Solid Edge ST and despite close to two years of his being on the job no one in the CADCAM press will ask him the kind of hard hitting questions that Newbury has shown in the past he doesn't want to answer. The same is true with Newbury's right hand man John Fox who on hiring was billed as "the new sheriff in town".

At this point the CADCAM press has absolutely nothing to lose by asking Karsten Newbury and John Fox about their continued poor performance and inability to make serious progress in gaining market share for Solid Edge ST. Newbury and Fox both know they badly need to get any publicity they can get for Solid Edge ST and that they have no choice but to answer the kinds of direct questions that measure their performance, or in their case the almost complete lack of it.

It's very obvious to me that neither Karsten Newbury or John Fox have any idea how to properly market Solid Edge and by now this should be obvious to the CADCAM press as well.