Does mastercam for solidworks have an advantage

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

Dave,

 

That's certainly a fair question. Since the update to provide SW2010 support in Mastercam's File/Open is part of a larger update with improved support for other importers (AutoCAD 2010 for instance) AND also includes several bug fixes, it's taking it a while for it to be OK'd here and then released.

 

All I can say (all anyone here can say) is that it's in the 'production candidate' stage (so resellers and beta testers can access it) and it'll be released when the powers that be say it's ready.

[Dave.L]

Pete,

 

Thanks for your reply and with all due respect I cannot appreciate the answer. I would be willing to bet not one user of this group could tell one of there customers "it will be ready when it's ready".

 

In addition, many users like myself would rather have the patch now as opposed to waiting for the next release. I don't see a reason why more frequent updates can't be done.

 

I do however appreciate your reply.

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

Dave,

 

"...many users like myself would rather have the patch now as opposed to waiting for the next release..."

 

I completely understand and will pass that opinion along to the people here who make those decisions.

[Dave.L]

Thank you.

[mayday]

We (I) would rather see the time/money spent on fixing known bugs rather than getting MC to work in someone else's software

[mold100]

G no mail man ........ HSM machining in the assembly looks pretty good ..... Mayday they have to adapt outside our realm ..... specially round here VX and Cimitron on the rise and well Cimitron honestly for our market is outstanding . but still CHA CHING solidworks is extremely affordable, and to add a seat of sworks and a seat of mill lvl 3 with solids to an investment means learning 2 softwares technically for about same cost and if an integrated package works similar for less money then why go for both . Now i do believe pound for pound Mcam is by far best cam system, biased yep sure am and I love solidworks, best of both worlds for me ...........

[gaijin_2007]

No offense but I wouldn't touch Cimatron with a 10 foot pole.

Have you seen their financial numbers?

There's a company in some real trouble, sales are down 24% on last year and they posted a $1.7 million loss for the first 3 quarters of this year.

Good software but not a good bet to be around much longer IMO.

[Dave.L]

quote:

---

sales are down 24% on last year

---

Been watching the economy over the last year

 

Probably not the only company down 24%

[gcode]

quote:

---

but I wouldn't touch Cimatron with a 10 foot pole

---

didn't Cimatron buy out Gibbs.. we've hired an

ex Gibbs guys as a trainee and all I hear all day long is "Wow .. Gibbs can't do that"..

If Cimatron is in trouble,, someone will buy them up.. but will the software survive or get absorbed

into the buyers product?

I remeber some years back when Smartcam users

got left holding the bag when Smartcam went

south..

[gaijin_2007]

quote:

---

Probably not the only company down 24%

---

Probably not, although after one of the previous posts I was looking at the Delcam website and see they're up 13%.

 

The only advantage Gibbs has over MasterCAM is for multi-task machines and then they're one of the worst in the market (alongside EdgeCAM) at dealing with them IMO.

 

If you look at Cimatrons numbers they're doing less now combined with Gibbs then they were on their own before buying Gibbs.

 

I think the days of the big guys buying companies like Cimatron are done, the economic situation just doesn't warrant it.

And other than an existing userbase what would they bring to the table?

Maintenance revenues are dropping, development is being cut back and most of their functionality is 3rd party.

So what would a buyer get for their money?

 

WorkNC has the same problem, been up for sale for a few years but no one's interested.

Again, good software but just not worth it for an investment.

[mold100]

G it was version 11.2 freeform i think ...... ugh that sucked I was one of them ...... theyre back n because of that I wouldnt even ask for a quote from them.

[gcode]

mold.. did you get my mail ??

I'm sending it to the gmail acount listed in your profile

[mold100]

G yep ....... one back to you.

[MotorCityMinion]

Even if Cimatron vanished tomorrow, so what. I have some Lufkin tools in my box that still do what they were intended to do, just not as shiny as they once were. If the product is top notch now, 5 years from now, it will still perform. Question is, will the people with the skills necessary to use it still be available, or even interested in using it.

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

The biggest problem (IMO) to using an unsupported software is not getting translator updates.

[gcode]

quote:

---

If the product is top notch now, 5 years from now, it will still perform

---

as long as you can keep 5 years old hardware and

obsolete OS's running..

We see guys running V5 or V6 coming here all the time trying to get 10 year old software running

on modern comptuers after thier old 286 went

belly up.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

If the product is top notch now, 5 years from now, it will still perform.

---

Maybe... but at the rate OS's are going through major changes, I would NOT take that bet. Iw oudl not take that bet ESPECIALLY if my company's livlihood rode on it.

 

quote:

---

Question is, will the people with the skills necessary to use it still be available, or even interested in using it.

---

Interested? Maybe the diehards. There's a few people still using V11 SmartCAM DumbCAM.