SolidWorks:Heard! - Episode 368 - 2011 Year In Review
/2011 Year in Review:
This podcast covers a summary of 2011 and the specific SolidWorks most memorable moments starting with Jeff Ray leaving to SolidWorks 2012 SP1 shipping and everything in between. Topics covered:
SolidWorks 2011 Highlights:
- Jeff Ray out, Bertrand Sicot In
- Solidworks pre-announces 3 web products
- DraftSight for Linux
- IE9 and Windows 7 SP1
- 3DVIA Composer ships two major releases
- SolidWorks 2012
- Jon Hirschtick leaves SolidWorks
- Toolbox Woes
- Top 10 list goes live (just to name a few)
Technology Highlights:
- Google launches Google+
- Windows 8 in Developer Preview
- RIM is fading
- HP open sources WebOS
- iPad 2 ships
- Steve Jobs dies at 54
- Android is killing it
- Amazon launches an Android Market and the Kindle Fire
2011 was quite a year in the tech industry and there changes across SolidWorks in many areas. SolidWorks was business as usual for the most part. CEO change at the turn of the year, SolidWorks World announced new products, and a new version of SolidWorks shipped. Despite early announcements of 3 cloud tools (n!Fuze, Post3D and Live Buildings), none of them really caught on due various reasons. SolidWorks 2012 is a quality release with some solid additions but mainly seems to be embraced due to the little things.
The active SolidWorks blogging community somewhat slowed way down this year with many stopping blogging all together. Although blogs still bring the most helpful content, the social networks seem to be where the interaction is today across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.
2011 also brought a tremendous growth in mobile, especially in the ubiquity of smart phones. Everyone has a computer in their pocket today and use it to be productive (and not) on the go. Companies across the globe are producing apps and mobile sites to allow their users to do device-specific activities on the go. Personally I believe SolidWorks needs to get into the mobile game in 2012 in order to meet and exceed that of the competition, some of which (AutoDesk) have built a number of apps to view, markup, and collaborate across a number of their products.
I want to thank you all for listening/reading for another year and look forward to bringing more tech news and other tech tips to you in the coming year! Happy New Year! ~Lou
Remember to check out the SolidWorks: Heard! Blog and to follow me on Twitter, Facebook and THE HEaRD!
