Alibre Design Xpress 3D Solid Modeler will be free lol

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

hi

first to post it.

well obviously they realy release a free version but as it looks like it is a personal edition with basic tools and not what they talked about before.
i guess this hole registration thing was only a trick to get people aware about the software and from my counting they did not reach the max registrations.

http://www.alibre.com/xpress/software/alibre-design-xpress.asp

what can you do in industrial design without booleans? kinda nothing.
i guess the sofware will be a piece of useless BS.

claas

2

you forgot to mention the inclusion of google ads. personally, i think that will be enough to keep people away in droves. i find ads annoying enough on websites, but in my software? nuh-uh. i would rather buy software from somebody else!

jim ww

3

More “we need n number of registrants before we release our product” dog crap.

They aren’t getting my email address.

Google ads? I don’t mind google ads, but it likely uses IE to render these ads. It’s a security problem on it’s own.

4

It’s quite sad really, no download from me. :frowning:

5

I got my email from them earlier today.

Overall, I don’t think it’s too terrible (the offer, I can’t vouch for the software yet.) The email address I gave them hasn’t received any spam yet, and from what I can tell, it seems like the company is fairly well respected. I think this little marketing gimmick wasn’t as well thought out as it could have been, but I attribute that to a mistake more than malice.

Re: google ads. Yes that looks obnoxious (the loss of screen space) but they aren’t the first. The free version of Opera does the same thing. If the software is any good, its $49 to register for the ad-free version.

To me it looks like something to put in the toolbox, and if I never use it, I’m not out anything.

Here’s the email I got from them.

Thanks to your participation in the X-CAD 100,000 Seat Giveaway we have reached the goal of 100,000 registrations early!

Some of you may not have heard, we announced on Wednesday that Alibre is the company behind X-CAD and X-CAD is Alibre Design Xpress, the newest member of the Alibre Design product family.

As of August 1, Alibre Design Xpress will be available to all for free. But, as one of the first 100,000 to register, you’re getting a little more.

For you Alibre Design Xpress will include all the features listed on the new Alibre Design Xpress site, plus:

* Advanced part modeling, which includes features like shelling, 3D sketch, reference surfaces, etc. View the Alibre Design brochure on our web site for the full part modeling feature set.

* Create and edit assemblies with up to 25 unique parts. You can open an assembly with more parts in read-only mode.

* Create 2D drawings with standard orthographic views. All drawings are fully associative: you change the model and the drawing updates.

* 3D import/export of all the standard formats Alibre Design supports, including STEP, SAT (ACIS), and IGES. DXF and DWG are supported in 2D, and STL is supported for export.

All free versions of Alibre Design Xpress require an Internet connection and will display a banner of Google ads through a built-in web page. No third-party adware is installed on your system. If your Internet connection is lost we have taken steps to ensure that you can save your work. The Internet connection requirement can be turned off for a small fee.

On August 1, you will receive instructions on how to download the software. We had hoped to release it to you sooner, but given the nature of software development, we are in the final stages of quality testing. At this time we expect all to be ready for the August 1 release.

This is truly the best offer for parametric 3D CAD software available anywhere. When you get the download instructions, please complete the steps to download and install Alibre Design Xpress right away. The special offer you get as one of the first 100,000 expires on August 31, don’t delay.

6

this just reminds me about many of thsoe express versions.
they are basicly so striped down that they are useless and
more follow the purpose of a trial software with safe function.
unfortunately many companies stoped giving away this
express version cause the are first basicly useless for
even semi professionals (avid express just allows some cutting
and basic composeting) and second as far as i understand
money wise.

well this google ad is something that pretty much disapoints me a
lot cause you need always an internet connection to run the app.
thats more than a hassle and i pretty sure will generate bad
experience.

7

In would be really delighted if people state the kind of “freedom”
already in the topic. I was expecting it to be released under a GPL (or compatible)
license.

Offers like this are just a marketing gag, why do ppl advertise for them?
If it would be unique for its purpose, than you might be “forced” to accept
crappy offers like that. Propietary software simply dies faster than GPL’ed,
and renders the knowledge of it and the efforts to gain it, useless.

You need to strongly believe in reincarnation to waste your time like this.

8

That seemed scam and finally turn out in a big scam.
From its forum:

CADTech
I wont go into the bait and switch that previuos posters have mentioned…I really think that this software comapny has given the CAD “World” a bad name…

Having been a reseller/tech support for 2 of the best CAD programs out there, this is despicable.

I guess I will be having a conversation with the Executive Director SME (Society of Manufactoring Engineers).

Maybe she can get the ball rolling with all her contacts and networking channels to try and put the heat on somebody.

Also, I will be contacting some of the trade publications tomorrow morning. They would love to get this in their hands, if they havnt already.

9

Join the party:
http://www.alibre.com/xpress/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

Particularly that one:
http://www.alibre.com/xpress/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28

The more I see things like this, the more I love Blender.

10

If it contains ads many people will not download it

11

i think so to. this ad things is a big draw back.

good CAD software is expansive. cheap stuff will be well …

Amapi has some great nurbs tools now but it cannot in no way compet with cobalt for example.

claas

12

All this fuss about google ads.
Have you guys looked ^^^ recently? :wink:

Surely a cut down version of software is better than no free version at all, even if it has got ads?

–
brian

13

The problem isn’t that it’s Google ads, it’s the fact that they’re likely rendered using extremely poor software (I.E.: IE). Full of nasty little holes.

14

It had already been noted by the company behind it that, the software was going to be a striped down version of a CAD package lacking features where they would offer upgrades / additional tools for a fee.

It was quite obvious the X amount of sign up for the free package = free website advertisment. not only did they have about 4 text based pages with google ads that would have gave them plenty of profit over bandwidth fees - even if they didnt reach the sign up requirement they would reply “out of good faith we have decided to go ahead and give you this CAD application for free” the fact they they are implementing ads into it almost proves this.

Now, not only did they probabily earn loads from google ads, their company probabily got a lot of attention now. The free software is going to hook people onto it because it probabily the only free CAD version they can get thier hands on maybe?, then they will charge somthing like $5 for a upgrade which people will think “hmm nots not so bad” and they’ve got like $600,000 pretty fast…

15

lukus

good idea.

16

Surely a cut down version of software is better than no free version at all, even if it has got ads?

That’s not the problem.

17

The problem isn’t that it’s Google ads, it’s the fact that they’re likely rendered using extremely poor software (I.E.: IE). Full of nasty little holes.[/quote]

Actually it DOES use IE. lol :stuck_out_tongue: