With very few exceptions in order to gain serious market share you need a VAR network. Both IronCAD and SpaceClaim are good products the deserve more attention but they both have a very weak VAR network representing them. It's unfortunate that a VAR network is needed because it hurts the smarter end user with much higher costs. Siemens/UGS now has a major technology advantage with Synchronous Technology and their own CAM. Without spending large dollars and developing a really strong VAR network Siemens/UGS won't take market share from SolidWorks or Inventor who don't appear to have any answer to Siemens/UGS superior technology advantage. There is nothing I would like to see more than to see SpaceClaim make it but they have very weak VAR's and they don't appear to be making any progress getting stronger ones. SpaceClaim started with a marketing plan that I said wouldn't work and it didn't work.
http://tinyurl.com/3qsbem
I can't even imagine how much money SpaceClaim must have burned through with their initial bad marketing strategy. What would really help SpaceClaim is getting someone like Surfcam or Smartcam to create a full blown CAM program to run inside of SpaceClaim and then use the CAM companies VAR network to market the combination of SpaceClaim CAD and their CAM running inside of SpaceClaim.
I work for a very large company in California and we are very successful because we focus on partnering. I believe SpaceClaim needs to do the same thing with a strong CAM company in order to survive and they need to do it yesterday!
3 comments:
"Without spending large dollars and developing a really strong VAR network Siemens/UGS won't take market share from SolidWorks or Inventor who don't appear to have any answer to Siemens/UGS superior technology advantage."
Jon
In the UK at least, the SIemens VAR channel is growing and that's due to a combination of increased focus on reseller, indirect sales support from the powers that be at Siemens, but also due to the hard work from the channel partners themselves.. My tuppence anyway.
Al,
Your new blog looks great and I appreciate the info you have put up explaining Siemens/UGS Synchronous Technology. I found the second article very helpful.
I'm glad to hear that the Siemens VAR channel in the UK is growing and doing well. I have spoken with people at UGS in the states and they joke how bad they are at marketing to smaller shops. Not a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I hope Siemens with correct this problem. UG CAM Express is priced at about the same level as Mastercam but from what I can tell and from what I’ve heard it’s a far better product and much more robust compared to Mastercam. Despite this, small machining job shops never consider UG CAM Express as a viable option because Siemens/UGS doesn’t have its VAR’s going after smaller shops letting them know and showing them that they have a choice. In my opinion this problem really needs to be addressed if Siemens/UGS wants to gain market share and make smaller shops aware that a viable alternative to SolidWorks and Mastercam exists.
Hi Jon
I had 2 questions:
1. How is this synchronous technology different from what Spaceclaim had been providing?
2. Could you please tell what a VAR network / channel is ?
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