Jeff Ray announced that SolidWorks will go through the roof

Thanks to distributed computing, network computing, virtualization and 'thin clients' some of the more tedious operations for computer support of companies may already be a reality. In addition, when something is both everywhere and nowhere, the collaboration between members of an absolutely dispersed team, which may be where suits, while have a good connection to the Internet, becomes not only feasible, but far easier. And SolidWorks takes time getting ready to take advantage of these benefits, and should, although not spoke of the subject, having found sufficiently reliable ways of ensuring the security and privacy of the information.

This has not been, logically, the first announcement of Jeff Ray, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SolidWorks, which has started showing its satisfaction by having an audience of 5,000 people in his presentation today. If last year the number of attendees to SolidWorks World was 4,300, and was considered a success, given the economic circumstances of the time, this time have broken all records. SolidWorks users must be unrelated to the crisis. At least most, because that last year the program put in place to enable designers to which they were out of work to update their training in Design 3D it resulted in 60,000 software downloads2,200 people who followed the training to its completion and several hundred who got one of the certifications of SolidWorks (CSWP and CSWA). Two of those who followed such programs more successfully, and got not only a title but a new job, were today here. An effective way to show that a company can do something for their 'Community' while increasing the number of users and potential buyers. Only partially altruistic action but, in any case, laudable and inimitable.

Dassault Systèmes wants to 'solidworks' brand is associated more intense to 'dassault systèmes'. To do so, the CEO of Dassault Systèmes, Bernard Charlès has been one of the participants in the presentation today. SolidWorks, in the words of Jeff Ray, has the same DNA that DS: tools for engineers by engineers. And passion, at least a little bit. Passion fruit of the need for Dassault Aviation, one of the best in the world of Aeronautics, leaving aside the monsters Boeing and Airbus, required from the outset design tools for their work. And this led to the well-known Catia (pronounced by Jeff Ray sounds like 'catía', and pronounced by Bernard Charlès sounds like 'catiá', rather than sound 'cátia'). Since 1997, when SolidWorks raised make an initial public offering (or an IPO,), as they call them SolidWorks is under the umbrella of Dassault, together with Catia, Simulia, Delmia, Enovia and 3dvia. And for some time, Dassault opens the umbrella and reminds us who lives under the same.

Bernard Charlès, has also announced that SolidWorks will broaden your perspective. The new motto accompanying SolidWorks is now "3D for professionals". Now is not only mechanical design, but anything that needs to be designed (by a professional is supposed), and having three dimensions. That is to say, almost everything except the pages of a printed publication, which, for the moment, are represented sufficiently well with a dimension less. And the ultimate goal is to open the three-dimensionality until you reach the end consumer, in addition to the research, engineering, and the educational system. Bernard has summed up the shares of the company in the last thirty years: the 1980s were the transition from 2D to 3D, the time of the digital prototype, the early 1990s of the 2000 management of product life.

For this decade, the goal is the immersion in the three-dimensionality. Make the three-dimensional virtual will look increasingly to the tangible. Something as well as the 'holodeck' in Star Trek, but I am afraid that the way to go is still long. For the moment, however, a car designed with SolidWorks by a team headed by Jeremy Luchini and Mike North (engineers famous for these latitudes, among other things, thanks to television) can see in an application for the iPhone, and join in a photo next to designers. If at the time of Dick Tracy, have a videophone on the clock seemed to science fiction of the distant, reality has shown to surpass fiction. Why not again?

The physical version of the car, an electric vehicle with several horse stables, and it accelerates from zero to one hundred in less than 3.8 s, have not dared to upload it to the stage, although it has been led up the side of it. The design obviously impressive. Design made by people passionate about design, in less than a year.

The detailed presentation of the lines of development of SolidWorks her carried out Mark Biasoti (Product Manager), Mark Schneider (head of product marketing) and Joe Dunne (director of product and technical strategy). They made her using a Mac and a PC with touch screen. Show a Mac on the stage, although I have left doubt as to what operating system which used proven applications, it has served to excite a part of the audience, which has responded with a round of applause. The touch-screen computer, few days before Apple announced the upcoming availability of its iPad, has made smile to many. In any case, the objective is that the applications 'in the cloud' can run on a wide variety of platforms.

The possibilities of distributed computing displayed there have been many. However, there are three that have attracted my attention: the ability to search for 'wherever' a piece or a component someone makes something like this as the Google of the 3D, the ability to work in parallel in real time and demonstrations of reliability (the message was clear)(: If the program hangs, passes nothing, by putting it up again, won't us continue where left it).

The date has not been announced in that all this will be a usable reality, but, in the words of Jeff Ray "are as close enough to make this presentation". It will not be in SolidWorks 2011, although some of the features can they begin to be present in the same.

In any case, this is a more than significant turn in the line of development of the company. What has been called more than once 'a paradigm shift'. Apparently, HP and Dell will sell fewer PCs. They will sell a lot of very powerful (or very very powerful) servers to SolidWorks (or Dassault Systèmes). Something tells me that it will not exactly – sold many very powerful personal computers, and many very very very powerful servers.