Evan on Engineering Software

 In an interview at Franco Folini's Novedge Blog, I made this comment:

I think what is more interesting than software subscription is software as a service (SaaS). Done right, it can have real benefits for users, particularly in shifting maintenance and procurement costs to vendors, and in converting front-ended loaded overhead costs into scalable variable costs. Yet, I don’t know that any of today’s major CAD vendors are anywhere near the point of being able to deliver serious SaaS solutions. And I don’t know that the current SaaS platform vendors are anywhere near providing the kind of capabilities demanded by such solutions.

Ben Kepes, who writes about Software as a Service, had this comment:

• It uses SharePoint Server as a repository for DWG files,
• It finds and uploads all Xrefs associated with a DWG, detecting and maintaining path information,
• It allows you to download all associated files, as a group,
• It keeps all revisions, and allows easy rollback.