Jeff's Tool Shed

No, that’s not a misprint. The incredibly intelligent, although slightly whacked, team over at DriveWorks are making a movie. Glen Smith, CEO and co-founder, admitted that the idea came to be whilst indulging in a drink or five one night after work. Once they’d made the commitment, there was no turning back.

For those of us lucky enough to be invited to the event Thursday morning (meaning the Thursday after SWW), it was more than a just pre-screening. We were going to not only be able to see what they’d done thus far, we were going to be involved in more of the filming. That’s right, yours truly is an extra in what is sure to be a blockbuster. I foresee Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, SAGs, the whole gambit. Ok, fine, they won’t even qualify for a Razzie but that’s not the point.

With Glen setting up the scenes, we were walked through a fictitious company’s introduction to DriveWorks from DriveWorksXpress to the complete DriveWorks package. While the movie spanned the whole product line, the main focus seemed to be DriveWorks Solo, their newest product. A step below the complete package, DriveWorks Solo provides plenty of features to make it attractive to a wide swath of SolidWorks users. The interface is as simple as DriveWorksXpress that all SolidWorks users already have (2008 and up). Couple that with a powerful form designer and you end up with a simple way to automate your designs. They’re so confident in this new product that they’re offering up a free 30-day trial. Just go to www.driveworkssolo.com and sign up.

What makes DriveWorks Solo so powerful is that this incredibly intelligent team undertook the monumental effort of creating their own rules engine. One can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a bit more drink involved in that particular decision as well, especially where it ended up taking 3 years to complete it. The results are obvious though. This new engine is capable of doing 20,000 calculations simultaneously in seconds. It’s a pretty damn incredible feat, and quite apparent when running DriveWorks Solo.

While the rules engine is pretty compelling unto itself, there’s more! How about multiple language forms? Pick your needed language and all forms will be created in said choice. The needed currency will also be included. Still not enough? How about pervasive search? Mini-wizard for every function? Accept/reject capabilities so some lame-brain idea by sales doesn’t get crammed down engineering’s throat. As soon as I get my system cleaned up, I’ll be trying out DriveWorks Solo.

DriveWorks didn’t stop there, though. They cleaned up DriveWorks Pro, too, making it more user friendly. The form mapping UI is much easier to navigate and provides a clearer picture as well. They even include ePDM integration. It would appear that the team at DriveWorks spent a lot of time thinking about the end user and how they interface with the products available. Quite honestly, I think they did an exceptional job.

The other thing that got me was the presentation itself. I enjoyed Glen’s humor during it all. While it was a sales presentation, it didn’t have that sort of vibe. What I took away from it, aside from insight into all of their offerings, was a company that was comfortable in its skin. They have a great product, know it’s a great product, but aren’t going to sit on it. They don’t put on a false face, willingly act human and make you feel like you’re more than just a customer. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Glen had pulled out a few bottles of whiskey and asked us all to join him in a nip. I can’t wait to see the complete movie once it’s done.

My apologies for the delay of this post. Things have been rather hectic lately.

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