NX CAD packages for small and medium businesses (SMB)
Many startups encounter obstacles in their quest for rapid success. Lengthy development cycles and various challenges impede their progress. This is why Siemens is dedicated to addressing these issues and enhancing the startup journey. On this episode, we welcome back Jeff Shagena, the SMB Product Manager for NX CAD. Jeff will help us understand the various CAD offerings and programs of Siemens for startups, students, and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
On the first episode with Jeff, we learned about how NX CAD is adapting to meet the needs of small and medium businesses. In this episode, you will learn more about the Siemens Mechanical Design bundle and Siemens Xcelerator for Startups. You will also get to hear more about the concept of Continuous Release, which involves regular major releases and monthly updates, enabling users to easily obtain the latest features and bug fixes at their convenience.
Listen to or read the full episode: Siemens’ CAD Solutions for Startups and Small & Medium Businesses
What you will learn in this episode:
What are the benefits of Value-Based Licensing?
NX Value-Based Licensing allows NX customers to get the maximum value out of the NX portfolio without breaking the bank. For one subscription cost, you get access to over 100 add-on modules at a great value. While it is of great value to any customer, Jeff believes it makes the most sense for SMBs who may have a limited budget for licensing add-on modules. More modules are constantly being added during every major NX release, which with Continuous Release, is every six months. Value-based licensing is best for occasional-use add-ons, and with the flexibility and cost savings, you don’t need to trial or figure out whether you should purchase a module before using it, you can simply use some tokens and return the tokens to the pool when you close the application.
How does Value-Based Licensing work?
Customers can access the benefits of NX Value-Based Licensing through purchasing a subscription for a token pack. These value-packs come in packs of 50 tokens or 100 tokens, and as many packages can be bought as needed. With these tokens, you can use them to “check-out” licenses to add-on modules. Each of the modules has a set token cost, and that amount of tokens is deducted from the available tokens until it is returned— when a user stops using the application. The majority of add-on modules in the token license pool are available for less than 100 tokens, so they are all accessible even with a small amount of tokens. The only prerequisite is a base license for Mach 1 or higher. Jeff notes that value-based licensing is most effective with four or more add-ons needed needed fairly often but not all the time. Token licensing can be used with traditional licensing of add-on modules, so you can mix and match for the highest flexibility.
What are the best CAD solutions for small and medium businesses?
Siemens offers multiple CAD engineering bundles for small and medium businesses. The Siemens Mechanical Design bundle allows customers, especially SMBs, to hit the ground running on day one with NX. It wraps up the MCAD purchasing, licensing, training, and service needs. This bundle includes a seat of NX Mach 1, multiple seats of Solid Edge, and Teamcenter integration for both of the CAD products for data management. With multiple seats of CAD software that are fully interoperable with each other, and the opportunity to add value-based licensing on top of that, it’s a great value for SMBs.
Siemens Xcelerator for Startups
Siemens Xcelerator for Startups is a design engineering and simulation startup bundle great for startups that need a lot of functionality but may not have the budget to purchase individual licenses for each software product. This bundle brings multiple tiers each at a great value to companies that meet qualifications of being a startup (based on seats and revenue). Jeff emphasizes that with this solution, you really get the competitive advantage of getting the most productive modeling environment with NX, plus all the generative engineering tools, electromechanical design as well. There are multiple tiers: the Engineering bundle, Flex Engineering tier, and the Simulation tier.
The Engineering bundle is the “good” tier that can be on-premise or SaaS that comes with NX Mach 3 Industrial Design, Teamcenter, as well as training that will help startups get up and running as fast as possible, speed up development cycles, and enable productivity. The “better” tier, Flex Engineering, comes with NX Mach 1, Simcenter 3D for simulation, NX for manufacturing, value-based licensing for all three, and training. Lastly, the Simulation tier is identical to the Engineering bundle but also includes Simcenter simulation products like Star-CCM+ for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Amesim for mechatronics design.
NX CAD Cloud and SaaS offerings
For more flexibility and a lower upfront cost, we also offer cloud-ready offerings. There is NX X, which has all the functionalities and similar bundling of on-premise NX but is a fully managed SaaS solution.
Jeff concludes again emphasizing that Siemens is right for SMBs. Whether you’re a day-one startup company, or you’re a mature mid-sized business, we want to make sure that we’ve got the right offerings out there for you.
Want to learn more about NX CAD software? Check out our website or try it for free.
