Licensing is not the only issue with add-ins. In fact, licensing is the least of the problems. Third party developers have their IP stored in DLLs which are called by the add-in DLL. Moreover, we also license DLLs from other component developers and pay them royalties. Its way too complicated as compared to something like salesforce.com.

My point is that for my add-in to work, SolidWorks would need to give access to their servers for me to do my thing. Either that or bundle my add-in along with the SolidWorks application itself. And we know that that is not logistically possible for each and every add-in that has and will be developed.

Add-ins in the cloud is a huge problem, something that even blazing fast servers and internet connectivity may not be able to solve for a long tiem to come. It is more of a logistical problem and less of the technological problem.

3rd party add-ins could be handled. The “licensing” would be based off of the the user’s login to the “service” Look at salesforce.com. They do this exact same thing every single day. They have 3rd party applications and customized parts of the code that are turned on/off, instantly. It is actually super convenient as things can be accessed instantly- as opposed to waiting for an installation.

Sharing of files -step, iges etc could be transferred differently than they are today. Today, we email them back and forth. But, you could easily have a “file sharing” mechanism in the cloud. Bandwidth gets faster and faaster every day. So, I agree, today’s bandwidth may be a drag a bit. But there is absolutely a solution to this problem.

Deelip mentions “healing” etc and SW being an eng application. Agree- even more reason that a cloud based approach could bea possible solution. Imagine that you have numerous machine, processors and RAM available as you need it. All of the kinks are not worked out completely but HPC in the clouds is coming and will give us more horsepower than we ever dreamed of having on a desktop today. Unfortunately, Amazon EC2 isn’t designed to run in parallel like this, but it isn’t to say someone else could solve this as well.

I agree with Matt that we aren’t at a point that a guy driving SW 8 hours a day can expect seamless responsiveness. But I don’t think we are that far away from bandwidth, graphics, processor performance to be up to the challenge to make this a reality.

My point in all this is that there are numerous benefits to SaaS in the CAD world. I don’t believe the technology is quite there yet, but we’re not far away from it.

derrek

Though people often use “cloud” in a general sense, “cloud computing” is a bit different than merely having an application run on a web server. Check out Amazon EC2.

Some software developers want to push saas because it resolves all future licensing conflicts in their favor. It also eliminates the distribution expenses, and will drastically reduce tech support due to local issues like installation, video card drivers and a million other things. The server farm initial and ongoing expenses have to be significant, but I’d guess worth it from their point of view.

In the end, there are people at SW who are smart enough to see the obstacles, but they’ve got a business guy out front, not someone passionate about technology, and I don’t think he can answer questions like yours on his own. If he had passed you on to Austin O’Malley or Paul Chasteen or one of a number of other folks, you would have stood a better chance at getting a thought out answer. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one they pass to inappropriate people.

I believe whether it works or not, SolidWorks is going to try saas. They already use Citrix to allow users to test alpha software without needing to install it. Using Citrix to power an application across the web is not responsive enough for a guy sitting there doing it 8 hours a day. As you point out there is no way (and I would argue no reason) to convert the entire user base to saas, but I think even with all its limitations, it might serve a useful purpose for select users. Some may even pay extra for it. The “scalable” part of the equation may not be as important as it first seems.

SW has several tools that work in the cloud already, like 3D Content Central, 3D Instant Website, eDrawings, Drawing Tube, Blueprint Now, and Drawings Now. It is possible that they don’t intend to take the core product to the cloud, just several of these ancillary collaboration tools. When it comes down to it, I don’t think SW in the cloud makes much sense for most users. If it has any usefulness at all, it is for a small niche.