Citing its customers' need to share and manage "billions of
DWG files," Dassault SystA"mes has announced
the DraftSight professional grade 2-D CAD tool along with a new online
community designed to support the product and facilitate collaboration with
like-minded peers.
At the new DraftSight.com,
Dassault will deliver a range of collaborative services, as well as foster
interaction with members who can share opinions and ideas, get training from
blogs, and ask questions of the community for free upon registration. In
addition, Dassault will leverage the community to offer optional, paid
services, including licensing options, telephone, e-mail and remote desktop
support, an API extension for customizing the platform and additional offerings
going forward, according to Aaron Kelly, senior director, DraftSight at
Dassault. DraftSight.com community members will also have the opportunity to
participate in the open product development process for DraftSight, the
complementary 2-D CAD program.
In conjunction with the community, the release of DraftSight
marks a first for Dassault, which is exploring an open business model with this
product. The professional-grade 2-D CAD tool is available to be downloaded for
free as a public beta at 3ds.com. DraftSight,
which generally takes only a few minutes to download, provides users with a
better way to read, write and share DWG files. The program's launch is in
direct response to customer requests, Kelly says, as users still have a need
for 2-D capabilities along with a requirement to access volumes of DWG files.
"Our customers are demanding a 2-D solution and they have
billions of DWG files on servers and computers that they want to share among
different users, customers and vendors," Kelly explains. In addition, there are
still tasks that are more productive with 2D than 3D, including laying out a
factory floor or schematics. "There are still clearly 2-D tasks," Kelly says.
"People are using 2D and 3D, not 2D or 3D."
DraftSight runs on multiple operating systems, including
Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Mac OS and Linux support will be
available later this year.
