SOLIDWORKS xDesign progress and design challenges

I’ve been coming to SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2018 with a hope to try xDesign. Well… it didn’t happen. It looks like xDesign is only available for a very small group of evaluators and not for people with PLM twisted mind. Although, based on the messages I’ve heard from the SWW18 stage, xDesign is running on top of well known PLM platform – an evolution of MatrixOne, ENOVIA V6, 3DEXPERIENCE.

So, no xDesign hands on. Therefore to give some sense of xDesign Experience, I put a video presented from main stage of SWW18 here.

Another interesting public appearance of SOLIDWORKS xDesign tool, or more specifically, the outcome of the too, was xDesign Design Challenge. Below you can see a show case with names of people that took the challenge to do work using xDesign and show it in public.

What is my conclusion? SOLIDWORKS is making a progress with xDesign, but the tool is still not for a prime time. The new strategy of SOLIDWORKS is to keep both desktop and cloud browser based tool for a very long time. My hunch was that this is what is going to happen. But SWW18  put this statement on record. So, customers should be getting ready for slow cloud migration, which is reminding the situation with Autodesk Fusion360 and Autodesk Inventor. Buy some popcorn and watch the show . Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.