Because you could get Fusion360 for $500 per year but the equivalent in Solidworks cost $5K base+$5k for CAM+$5K for modeling+$5K for ...
Solidworks is the monopoly and it was only the insertion of Fusion360 that broke it. Solidworks is so entrenched that they still haven't reduced their prices even though Fusion360 is absolutely killing them at the low end.
> Why don't people move? It's not like a super free market, but there's a bunch of options in the space.
I'd love to hear about them and throw some money at them. Before Fusion360, I knew of basically nothing at the low end.
Solidworks isn’t that widely used outside of academia and small businesses though, Catia is Dassault’s pro product and Siemens has NX and another tool whose name escapes me.
It’s worth noting that Siemens licenses the CGM kernel from Dassault for some of their products too though. At least they used to when I worked there…
I think they don’t need to market them - but that’s because they’re aimed at a different market segment. The licensing costs for these tools individually are very high, but big companies buy them as a package along with things like TeamCenter. Inertia is very strong so if a company uses a tool, they’re unlikely to migrate unless they’re forced to for some reason.
Solidworks is the monopoly and it was only the insertion of Fusion360 that broke it. Solidworks is so entrenched that they still haven't reduced their prices even though Fusion360 is absolutely killing them at the low end.
> Why don't people move? It's not like a super free market, but there's a bunch of options in the space.
I'd love to hear about them and throw some money at them. Before Fusion360, I knew of basically nothing at the low end.