My seat of SW must pay for itself--bottom line. In fact, it cannot be a source of hindering my design, either (often CAD gets in the way). If you purchase a CAD license (whatever flavor), you're purchasing much more than a year's worth of work with that license--it's a commitment for a long term.
Just think--maybe only .5 hours of difference in performance per day between one type of CAD and another. No big deal, right? Add that up over a year's time. How about over five years? I think you just saw not only how CAD can pay for itself, but how one type can pay well beyond, while another can significantly drag into your productivity ($$$).
Suddenly the price of the CAD license itself is totally diminished next to the cost of operating that flavor of CAD over a period of five years or even one year. Sometimes you get what you pay for and sometimes you don't even get that.
Imagine multiplying this whole factor many times to cover each employee in a company.
I overheard a conversation last night (cool gig at ESPN Zone in Denver put on by MCAD--my new VAR) in which a guy said he knew of a company that must have lost something like $700K by investing in the wrong CAD package (happened to be ProE). Add up the amount of time to train each user to use the new software, plus salaries during that time, plus the fact that no production is being done during that time, plus the possibility that training wasn't quite sufficient for all the users to become truly productive, plus failing to meet existing project deadlines as a result, plus, plus, plus. This guy said he thinks this single decision was one of the key factors to the downfall of a company. Compare that to the price tag of the CAD package. Yikes.
I agree with all your arguments, but may be I didn't explain my self clear enough in my question. I'm single user of the CAD in my company (start-up) and building of the parts and drawings in the CAD is the minor time spending. What most important to me is the power of simulations and analysis of the program. In demonstration of Inventor it have been seemed that its possibilities of these subjects were much higher of those in SW. Am I right? Does somebody of you familiar with these subjects in both CADs?
It all comes back to the VAR, the best thing to do is having them show you what they can do with the software and don't restrain yourself to their well polished demos, have them use your type of part with your kind of work and don't let them too much time to prepare, two days is enough. Then ask as many questions as you can and take notice if they are trying to avoid some subject because they won't expose the flaws of their baby. Then after you went through this you will have not only a good idea of the software but also of your VAR.
It's really important to keep an open mind when talking to them or they will feel that you are already sold on something and it will hurt their "performance". And please don't get caught up in the "we are the only ones who can do this" kind of thing, if it happens check carefully if it's true, because you are speaking with salesmen not users.
Maybe you should look at it differently and see the mutliple add on packages to SolidWorks for FEA and Simulations. They are above and beyond what is in the basic Solidworks. They are also way beyond what you will get with Inventor also.
Rocko is absolutely right, you should be looking at something like SolidWorks Premium. Contact your VAR for more details on COSMOS/Motion and COSMOS/Works.
I would find it hard to believe that Inventor has more in the way of simulation and analysis. For crying out loud Inventor has only recently added a routing add-on!
I know this sounds like a broken record (or scratched CD), but I’m sure your SolidWorks reseller would be more than happy to demonstrate the simulation and analysis capabilities of SolidWorks Office Premium. This package includes COSMOSWorks Designer and COSMOSWorks Motion. This software is so far ahead of Inventor that Inventor is always playing catch up. After you get a detailed demonstration of that capabilities based on your requirements, I suggest asking an Autodesk reseller to do the same thing. Bring some hard questions to the table and judge how the software handles the tasks. Pay close attention to the amount of work involved in Inventor to get to a similar result. Inventor will simply fall short in many situations.
I would strongly suggest against switching to Inventor. I would ask your SolidWorks reseller to give you an example of companies who have switched from Inventor to SolidWorks. I am sure they will be able to provide many. If you ask the same question of the Autodesk Inventor reseller they will struggle to come up with any.
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