SolidWorks, OS X, Bootcamp and the Certification Quandary

SolidWorks and Mac. There's something that's been discussed a lot on various forums and boards over the years, but as yet, there's nothing coming except eDrawings as we've already covered. There's been some pretty inaccurate reporting and inevitable smackdown ) then the petition started by Dominik Hoffman starts to resurface and apparently, its got over 4,000 signatures. For those unaware, the petition intro letter reads:

To: SolidWorks Corporation

With Apple continuing to deliver screaming-fast hardware in their G4 line of computers and the new Mac OS X's Unix underpinnings, the Macintosh would be an excellent platform for the SolidWorks 3D CAD system. By porting SolidWorks to Mac OS X, SolidWorks could truly make their flagship "The Standard in 3D Modeling Software" in eliminating its single-platform limitation. SolidWorks could quickly capture the No. 1 marketshare for Mac OS X based CAD systems. SolidWorks and Mac OS X share a common "Ease-of-Use" philosophy, without surrendering power, which would make them a perfect match.

As a user of Mac OS and/or SolidWorks on Windows I would like to make known to SolidWorks Corporation my great interest in seeing SolidWorks on Mac OS X.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

What's interesting is that many of the signatories are students (remember that fact for later) but there's also a bit of meat in terms of commerical user comment. William J. Underwood at Tesla Motors, who felt that "A lot of us are Mac users, forced into PC by nature of available apps and Nazi IT managers!" Elsewhere, David L. Stalling, KC BioMedix commented that "Having Soliworks running natively on the iMAC would greatly aid our medical device development. Make it happen." Final one that grabbed me was Alex Wood at Ishida (an organization with over 200 seats of SolidWorks), commented that "The only thing keeping me on a Windows PC is Solidworks, i'd swap tomorrow if Solidworks was made compatible with OS X"

I shot a few questions over to SolidWorks about their Mac plans, if any and got some interesting answers from Shaun Murphy, CAD product manager at SolidWorks.

Are there any plans to extend your range of Mac offerings?

Shaun Murphy: Not at the present time. We continually monitor our customer base to gauge the level of Mac usage and at the present time there is no pressing need.

I did wonder why it was dimissed quite so easily, so I asked if Murphy could expand a little on the reasons why not. His reply was:

Shaun Murphy: Support for an operating system is a major undertaking for a CAD company due to the legacy support implications. There has to be a demonstrated need for the new operating system by the company’s customer base. Our current research indicates that support for the Mac operating system is not at a level that makes business sense, less than half of one percent of our installed base.

Shaun Murphy: We will continue to monitor this situation and respond to any movements by our installed base to increased support of the Mac platform. If enough of our users want Mac support SolidWorks will provide it.

Are there any resources available for those looking to run SolidWorks under Bootcamp?

Shaun Murphy: Running SolidWorks on a Mac using Bootcamp is not a supported option. Once Bootcamp becomes a supported option resources will be made available.

I get that it's a huge undertaking to port to OS X. SolidWorks' Windows history doesn't help at all (its easier to move unix-based code across - as Siemens has done with NX) but this last one confused me. Bootcamp lets you dual boot a Mac and running Vista or XP pretty nicely and the latest generation of hardware is pretty speedy and powerful. So why no support?

Help?: Lou Gallo over at SolidWorks HEaRD has a few things you should know about. Firstly, he's been covering SolidWorks + Mac for a good long while (here's a link to a good podcast that discusses the pro's and cons). The other thing he's done is put together a guide to patching your graphics driver (when running bootcamp) that will replace your drivers with 'professional' card drivers and let you use all that RealView goodness to its fullest extent.


RealView: it don't work on Bootcamp - unless you get down with Lou's patch instructions.

So, SolidWorks runs fine on Bootcamp, the latest chipsets are up to the job (even if RealView doesn't 'officially' work) and the machines are blazing fast. So why is SolidWorks holding back on certifying the hardware?

Questions and thoughts: What this raises for me is perhaps the whole problem with perceptions. With the release of Bootcamp and the Intel/Nvidia based machines, Apple's hardware is pretty competitive these days and we'll be carrying out some tests to see just how fast these machines run in the next month or so.

But alongside this, there are teams within many organizations that want to go Mac, but because one or two tools are Windows-native, they can't - and SolidWorks is a perfect example. Take the design teams at Trek. Mechanical design is all done using SolidWorks, but if you read this interesting story on the Apple web-site, you'll find that the graphics-based Design team uses mac exclusively. Surely there should be the potential for some consolidation. Single source hardware, the ability to use both OS X and Bootcamp - but that's being held back by SolidWorks and its seeming reluctance to certify SolidWorks for running on Bootcamp.

But I think there's also some short sightedness; particular in the lack of resources for those looking to run SolidWorks using Bootcamp. While the company's research indicates that OS X represents less than half of one percent of their installed base, I'd predict they're going to see that rise in the next few years. Why?

Remember all those students that signed the petition? That's a key thing for me. Informal research we've done and from conversations with other vendors jumping into this space, it's clear that while the desire for OSX or even just Bootcamp support isn't big in today's market, it certainly is going to be in the future - and why?

Because the kids are using Macs. And sooner or later, Kids become Professionals. And Professionals become Buyers. And that generation of potential SolidWorks users is going to be one hell of a lot more fussy about what hardware they run than previous generations. The good news is that peeps like Lou Gallo are here to help out and get this working - certification or not.