Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

I would agree that there is a history of failed attempts, even earlier than Revit. There has also been a history of great timeshare (just another model of SaaS) successes also. Currently, there is a trend in the I.T. Industry towards SaaS. I do not know a single CIO / CTO that isn't investigating such options --both as provider or consumer.

If done well, SaaS could have a significant value proposition for both parties. That is a big if and the caution infered in my comments. Before offering SaaS vendors really need to examine just what the value being delivered is to users. Before users buy into the SaaS model, they need to look at just what trade-offs and risks are under the covers.

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

In regard to IP protection, I think the ownership of the model issues have been settled, it the access to how the model is stored that remains in question. If your vendor today suddenly closed its doors and you couldn't get any technical support or means or migrating all your data. What's the business loss? What’s the cost to contract another company to create a translator to get all the IP you've created over the years.

This is not a unlikely situation. During the mid-1970s one of my projects for a now absorbed Aerospace firm in Southern California was to create and manage a migration of all possible IP from one system now defunct to a new CAD system purchased to replace the failed system. The cost was not insignificant. One alternative was to manually recreate all the data again in the new system. The translation effort turned out to be just slightly more than the cost of hiring and training a team of college interns to spend a year reentering the data. At Lockheed –which had a backlog of manual drawings, they choose a as needed approach to conversion or reentry. If a assembly drawing or part needed to be redesigned, the next revision was created in a CAD system from the old printout. This too is expensive –it just spreads the cost of a longer period of time.

When it comes to open access to the data we still have a way to go in the industry.

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

In my opinion Bandwidth in the broadest sense will always be an issue. Whether is it local resource or response time through a network, working with graphical and engineering model data creates huge flows of information. I remember shocking an IBM Systems Engineer the first day I put a new CADAM installation on a 3033AP Mainframe through its paces. I entered in a few commands and got up to get a coffee. The SE looked at me puzzled asking me what I was doing. I told him I’d be back in about 10 or 15 minutes when the computer caught up to me. He looked at the main console to see I literately max’d out both the main and attached processors. I was the only terminal attached to the system. The point of this is that it doesn’t matter how much power you have engineer’s will always be able to use more. The question become how to enable a balance of power between the design task and the information flow requirements. A much more difficult topic to discuss on the blog. If you’re attending COFES 2008 I’d be happy to have some table talk with you and anyone else.

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

The cultural issue surrounding SaaS I find fascinating, especially since twenty+ years ago most organizations were fighting tooth and nail against distributed computing and engineering workstations. The model was a central mainframe and terminals. Now you’ll be hard pressed to find such systems. The question become what are the trade-offs organizations and engineers make and are willing to accept in order to perform their tasks. The assertion that AEC is very conservative the question become not how long, but, if SaaS becomes a viable strategy. If Skidmore switches over and blows the doors off of the industry because of a lower overhead and faster response time world-wide. How quickly do you think it will take others to switch over? When I presented at the CIPF years ago, this topic came up. I found the AEC CEOs, Presidents and CIOs thoroughly engaged looking for any edge or competitive advantage they could get.

So the question becomes what needs to be in place to make it viable. SaaS in Engineering is not a foregone conclusion but one of many alternative scenarios.

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

I've been researching and working with various vendors the past 6 months on various incarnations of SaaS. What I’m seeing out of Microsoft as a model “Software + Service” appears to me to be the rational approach (i.e. render unto Caesar that which is…) I can see where a highbred model of both Service and Thick Client in a cooperative manner is a useful way to go. If you take a look at EMAIL of all things, both IBM and Microsoft have a Thick Client and Service solution (e.g., NOTES and EXCHANGE/OUTLOOK). Another company for S/W Developers to look at is Preemptive Solutions. They provide a rather strong set of tools for building a “S+S” architecture. I’m very impressed with their approach.

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

"Welcome to the real world NEO" Yes SaaS looks a lot like ASP which looks a lot like Mainframe Timeshare hosting..... The story has not made any declarations that this is a new or original concept. It only infers that a new business model is becoming viable in the engineering market.

If we include Microsoft's brand of SaaS aka S+S (Software plus Services) we have a more cooperative model between Host and Client. Again it looks like client/server --not an exceptionally new idea, but, it holds the promise of moving processing power anywhere on the grid as needed. Hmm I seem to remember presenting a White Paper at IBM's Guide/Share conference in the early to mid 80s suggesting that processing functions would be fulid in the future and that various functions could/would be allocated to the appropriate resources as needed (i.e., a real virtual machine).

While this forecast is being realized other aspects that make the technology useful and manageable are still in early stages of development. PLM in the 60s was a drawing crib with Frank the intern acting as index and check-in/out monitor and you lead’s memory for similar products and components, in the 70s & 80s the drawing crib became files on a computer and various tools to help classify and index products and components (Group Technology, etc) on other systems. In the late 90s we started to see the same functions migrate to a client/server or shared storage model we use today. Is PLM where it should be today –hardly, is it a new concept –not quite (See Systems Engineering text in the 1950s/60s or slightly more recent B. Blanchard’s book 1990s.

Other recent examples, Bill Gate’s book credited at one time as coining the term “Digital Nervous System”. The book never claims ownership just uses the term to explain systems in enterprises simply. Was it a new idea –no, it the same White Paper (called The Body Enterprise) above I used the analogy. When the book was being authored I was interviewed for several hours about my perspectives on enterprise architecture [I had just left Microsoft after laying down the initial concepts for Active Directory]. Did I invent the “digital nervous system” –hardly. I got the idea from reading von Bertalanffy’s book General Systems Theory and applied it to Corporate or Enterprise Architecture.

I was once told by a mentor that good engineers design well for the future, brilliant engineer’s do the same by stealing from the past. Is SaaS just a rebranding of ASP by slick marketers? Not exactly, sure it has similar attributes, but then one would have to claim ASP is nothing more than timesharing services also (get that royalty payment checkbook out –there is bound to be a patent out there somewhere). If that’s not enough fuel for the fire, think about what corporations are branding innovative these days: 15 different colors of cell phone? Stylish yes, Innovative? You decide I’ll keep my opinion on this one to myself.

In the end SaaS & S+S look like a rebranding of ASP which looks like a rebranding of Timeshare Services but there are differences and it’s those differences that Marketers try to explain and exploit as benefits so there will be customers so engineers can stay employed continuing to design and build products.

“I have reached great heights because I have stood on the shoulders of those before me”

Re: Is SaaS the Killer App for the CAD Industry?

Its been several months since asking the question will SaaS, S+S and Cloud gain a foothold. Recent announcements from Microsoft, Google and IBM seem to indicate movement by corporations, medium and small business alike. Possibly becuase of a disenchantment of local resources, possibly a reduction in internal support, and possibly due to the ability to turn a CAPEX into OPEX. A powerful option in this economy.

While bandwidth may still be a problem, a S+S solution where CAD model creation and analysi is done local and storage, routing, and workflow --a hybrid model-- may be the wave of the future.