PR, Marketing and the Business of CAD

Pretty Cool Software Product Comparison

Just today, Thomas Publishers, owners of Managing Automation Magazine, started promoting its Product Comparison tool.

Being a cynic, I immediately visited to check out if they had fouled up the CAD and PLM products. And it would appear not - well not much anyway! The system, available from the home page, provides multiple listings for enterprise software, RFID software, networking, computers and platforms and more.

I clicked on 'enterprise software' and it drives down through CRM, enterprise asset management, ERP, Finance, HR and PLM - among others. Click on PLM and there are multiple categories for specialist and general CAD design tools, design data management, CAM, configuration and the like.

For each sub-category, it gives a listing and you can click on two products and the system will bring up a comparison chart, as per below. Registration, which is free, is needed to access this data.

Now this is pretty cool. It gives a fast comparison of features side-by-side for the products selected. And there are a lot of products.

The only problem i see is that whoever filled out the forms for the data, which I assume, perhaps incorrectly, is done by the vendors, that you have some anomalous entries: an example being Proficy by GE Fanuc listed under the Sheetmetal manufacture Functions under CAM. This product, although it looks pretty good for keeping equipment backed up and running, is clearly not a CAM product!

However, correct software products seem to be well represented in there and give a nice, easy-understood comparison sheet. Go check it out!

Rach

Get Your Videos Ready

You can hardly miss the huge jump that video on the web has taken in recent months:- with YouTube and many pretenders rapidly coming online, the availability of small video cameras and web cams, now everyone can submit their work, no matter how good or bad it is.

There is also increased usage of the web, according to a recent survey by IBM, and published by the Wall Street Journal on August 22, 2007. According to the article, 'the study found that 19% of respondents spend six or more hours a day online versus only 9% who spend that much time watching television. Additionally, 60% use the Internet one to four hours a day versus 66% who watch that much TV.'

(They do also note that the survey was conducted across the internet, so the sample will inevitably have some bias.)

The article continues, "The survey offers one insight: People want to connect to others with similar interests, consume the media they want, when they want it, and they want to create experiences for others, be it through video or blogs."

The point, though, "IBM says that companies can’t rely on established marketing practices and that they have to “make advertising more compelling, or risk being ignored.” We know that print advertising is shaky, and standard web banner advertising is not getting the desired results any more. TV commercials are getting Tivo'd out. But then how to get the message out?

Vendors and their marketers are going to have to find more and more creative ways to advertise to an increasingly sophisticated web audience in a way that is acceptable. Inevitably that will include video on vendor web sites, as well as using the growing SEO tools to keep momentum going. Videos have a much wider acceptance and availability than they ever did, and people are getting used to 'watching TV' on their laptops. It doesn't take a genius to predict that in the very foreseeable future, your TV will actually be powered through your central home server, which will dish up movies, TV programs, web sites, and so on.

The ones who get it right will be the ones who nail the best combination of ways to promote their product without it being blocked as an ad. How do you do that? Through being entertaining, and educational....Put your thinking caps on people!

CCNtv provides video news for engineers and architects

Ok, so I have been pretty quiet on the blog this summer, but one of the results of my focus is CCNtv. CADCAMNETtv is a video broadcast covering the CAD industry's news, gossip and speculation, and is issued every two weeks. Video on the web is here to stay and we see no reason why CAD engineers should fall behind!

read more | digg story