Alibre’s very popular $99 Challenge offer for Alibre Design Standard V11.2 ended on September 29th, the same day we began shipping Alibre Design Version 12.  

The results exceeded our expectations. We are happy to report that we had record sales and profits in August and September. We added thousands of new customers worldwide, including hundreds of multi-seat business customers. Approximately 40% of new customers were business and 60% individual designers. Unit sales increased by an order of magnitude and lead volume more than doubled. We also received excellent blog and media coverage, with more than a dozen articles including several blogs that discussed the offer more than once. German, Japanese, UK, Australian and other Alibre VAR’s reported similar results.

CAD users apparently haven’t gotten enough though. Every day since September 29th folks are telling us why “they” still deserve to get the $99 offer. We have heard everything from “I didn’t realize it was the 29th already” to the equivalent of “the dog ate my sticky note.”

So to reward our customers, and because we don’t like to turn down business, we are going to authorize existing customers to offer the Alibre Design V11.2 for the $99 price to their friends and associates. Effective immediately, existing customers can authorize up to 10 of their friends or associates to buy V11.2 for only $99 each. Existing customers must use the Alibre “Refer-a-Friend” process to authorize the new referrals. In other words, to qualify for the $99 price, an existing Alibre customer must refer you.

Refer-a-Friend leads are the best ones to get, so we reward customers with free maintenance when their referrals buy. You can get complete details on Alibre’s Refer-a-Friend program and begin inviting others immediately at http://www.alibre.com/company/programs/refer.asp.

Customers that purchase Alibre Design Standard V11.2 for $99 can also upgrade to V12 by purchasing a maintenance agreement for $299. In addition to V12, the $299 maintenance agreement includes one year of telephone and online technical support and rights to any new versions or upgrades released in that 12-month period.

Oh, one more thing, for those lonely folks that don’t know anyone that already owns Alibre Design, or for those that just want to get V12 at the best possible price, we are selling Alibre Design Standard V12 plus maintenance for $398 ($99 + $299) to all comers, through the end of October.

All new Alibre Design customers, including those purchasing Alibre Design Standard for $99, are eligible for “Installation and Getting Started” support during the 30 days immediately following purchase. 

All customers are also encouraged to purchase Maintenance along with their version of Alibre Design, as it provides valuable additional support and software update options. Maintenance prices are $299 for Alibre Design Standard, $349 for Aibre Design Professional, and $399 for Alibre Design Expert.

Customers must be on active maintenance to receive periodic software updates and new version releases. Customers on active maintenance also receive technical support via telephone, email, and the Internet for a period of one year.

Alibre typically releases one major software version update per year and several minor updates. The current release version number is V11.2, which indicates that Alibre Design has been updated twice since the initial release of V11.

Alibre Design V12 is currently in the final stages of development and testing and should be released in several weeks. You can see detailed information about V12 at http://www.alibre.com/v12sneakpeek.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that customers who purchase during the $99 Alibre Design Standard Promotion are eligible for free “Instructor Led” Online Training Seminars and can sign up at https://www.alibre.com/training_support/requestwebinar.aspx. There is no charge for these webinars during their first 30 days.

It's been a long time in the works! After endless feedback from our user base and months and months of work, Alibre is ready to announce the availability of the public beta for Alibre Design 12.0. If you haven't seen the new features, check out the 40 min. comprehensive video demo located at http://www.alibre.com/v12sneakpeek. The video goes through almost all the new functionality.

The beta is available to any Alibre customer on an active maintenance agreement and can be downloaded after signing a brief NDA.

If you are interested in participating, get started here.

We'll be publicly announcing all this outside the blog in our newsletter on Tuesday, July 14th.

The term “Creative Destruction” was coined by Joseph Schumpeter in his book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."

While Schumpeter was focused on innovation and its impact on mainstream companies, the current economic crisis can also be seen as a process of “Destructive Creation”, with destruction coming before creation.               

According to many economists this is not an ordinary downturn, the contraction under way reflects a fundamental restructuring of the American economy. In crucial industries — particularly manufacturing, financial services and retail — many companies are exiting whole areas of business.

Many of the businesses that are failing or being left behind are actually very good businesses that have simply been ruined by greed, poor management, and obsolete business models.

In fact, companies like AIG, Citibank, GM, Chrysler and GE, who represent some of the world’s large conglomerates, arguably existed only because a booming stock market, easy credit and financial derivatives enabled them grow to dominance. These companies may cease to exist but the need for their products and business lines do not.

The collapse of large companies or their exit from “unprofitable” lines of business can lead to a flowering of innovation and company formation as new businesses spring up to take the place of the former monoliths.

Life, death, and rebirth are the endless cycle that defines and confines our world and us. Losing your job or seeing a business fail can feel a lot like the end as you watch everything you have built, your hopes and your plans seemingly dissipate and disappear. When a company closes or shutters divisions, it is the end for that organization, and may also be for employees and business partners.

Life as we know it has changed, whether you are an engineer or a Wall Street tycoon. Anytime there is significant unexpected change, you have insecurity. When there is fear, people naturally hunker down. What is unclear is how much of the slump is cyclical and how much reflects a permanent change in business and consumer behavior.

While we may regret the passing of an Chrysler, or GM, their demise will set the stage for the beginning of a new cycle. Just like the fruit of an apple tree that rots on the ground, fertilizing the seeds contained within, starts a new cycle of life, growth, and production.

Now is the time to shed fear and embrace these troubling times as a great opportunity to put the country and ourselves back on a rational path to prosperity.

Alexander Hamilton almost single-handedly invented the American financial system by persuading the first US Congress to consolidate all state debt into  a single national debt, create a national bank, and issue currency. 

Hamilton believed that manufacturing was the key to the prosperity for the new United States and also recognized the need for a strong financial system to finance and support the expansion of production.

The recent era of financial engineering represented a repudiation of production as the basis for prosperity, substituting consumption in exchange. Hamilton is probably still turning over in his grave, but at least now there are signs of a return to his core principles.

According to an article in the New York Times titled With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King? “A new pattern of occupational choice seems to be emerging. Public service, government, the sciences and even teaching look to be winners, while fewer shiny, young minds are embarking on careers in finance and business consulting.”

University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Enrollment – a leading indicator?
Is student enrollment in UTD’s engineering school a leading indicator of a significant shift in the value frameworks of young adults?

Recently, we had the honor of visiting with the new Dean and several faculty members at the University of Texas – Dallas (UTD) School of Engineering and Computer Science. We were very surprised to learn the Mechanical Engineering Department is their fastest growing department.

UTD’s Mechanical Engineer Department is less than one year old, but already has about 40 students. Enrollments by fall 2010 are projected to nearly quadruple the number of ME students to over 150. By the fall of 2011, enrollment is expected to quadruple again to more than 600.

We met with Dean Mark W. Spong, until recently the Director of the Center for Autonomous Engineering Systems and Robotics at Illinois University. Dean Spong told us UTD is seeing dramatically increased interest in science and engineering, especially Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, and BioEngineering. He attributes much of this to recent economic trends and changes in the psychology of enrolling freshmen. Dean Spong mentioned three fields in which student’s perceive increased career opportunities:

These fields are fertile ground for engineering and science majors and represent global technology markets that require mechanical engineering education and skills. They are also top priorities of the Obama administration and are receiving the greatest amount of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

History as a Lesson for the Future
During The Great Depression, Roosevelt put the nation back to work through the Works Process Administration and the tens of thousands of newly employed Americans that proceeded to build or rebuild countless schools, libraries, railroads, highways, and bridges including the Hoover Dam.

Science and Engineering also led the way during the space race and man’s landing on the moon. In those days, they were glamorous fields that attracted the best and brightest. The innovators of this age went on to create the technologies that define our civilization today.

Science and engineering represent the backbone of the American Dream, with the recent diversion into financial engineering clearly a “bridge to nowhere.” Engineers do interesting and important work, are well-paid and well thought of in their communities and make a difference to people and society as a whole.

That’s Why They Call it Work
During the early 70’s when I was choosing a career, money and stability were important since I already had a wife and baby. I wanted to do something that was also challenging and that would also support my family. I chose Computer Science because it was the closest thing to Robotics offered by my local community college.

I have always believed that you had to do real work, make a real contribution, in order to have a rewarding and secure career. For me real work is hard, it takes a lot of passion, commitment and perseverance, but it is worth it. Real work creates something that is real, something that is valuable and useful to others, that improves their lives by solving real problems or creating new opportunities.

In my experience, the greatest rewards are found in the work when it is done, rather than when it is being done. When you make or build something that has real value to others the rewards from seeing them use it to are much greater than money.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

In February, another 168,000 manufacturing jobs were eliminated, bringing losses over the last year to 1.2 million. In Michigan, where the troubles of the auto industry have been particularly traumatic, the unemployment rate is at 10.6 percent, the highest of any state.

President Obama responded to the figures by declaring that “this country has never responded to a crisis by sitting on the sidelines and hoping for the best”.

Folks, we have gone awry in our haste to embrace a service economy and outsource manufacturing.

According to Doug Noland, the Portfolio Manager for Federated Prudent Bear, “the U.S. is doomed unless it rebuilds its manufacturing base. To really turn things around, we need to build an economy where we can produce things, and there is very little being done today that addresses this fundamental requirement. Unfortunately, over many years we had gotten to the point that all we were trading for imports were financial claims."

The expectation for people to be disciplined, focused and responsible has become increasingly rare in this world. We have to seriously look at fundamentally rebuilding the economy. We’ve got to use this moment to shift our mindset in a direction that breeds success.

Product Design Entrepreneurs
You have probably heard how web-based and iPhone software development companies can now be formed and launched with little or no capital investment due to the proliferation of software component technology and open source software. Many software companies are now starting without venture capital, and are financing themselves from savings or small investments from friends and family.

You may not be aware that the sames trends that are benefiting web and iPhone developers are now paying off for engineers, inventors and product innovators. They now have the ability to assemble a low-cost design platform for as little as $500 - $1000. Making it is now possible for engineers and designers to satisfy their entrepreneurial yearnings with very little out-of-pocket expense. An earlier blog post titled "Netbooks + Freemium Software = Low Cost Design Platform" explains how.

Successful Alibre Design Entrepreneurs
Alibre just finished exhibiting at the 2009 Pacific Design and Manufacturing Show. We were pleased to see that the exhibitors and attendees were upbeat in spite of the down economy. Show floor traffic was not quite as high as last year, but it was pretty good nonetheless. Rapid Prototyping vendors and service bureaus had a lot of traffic, as did the Medical Design and Manufacturing exhibit area.

We were also gratified that many Alibre customers stopped by the booth to talk to us about how they are using our product. Our customers have a lot in common with each other. Many of them are small business owners that are also the primary product innovator and designer for their company. They have literally taken their product ideas and turned them into successful companies.

Another common theme is customers that use ExpensiveCAD at work who have discovered that Alibre Design is the perfect CAD choice for their own consulting business or for creating that breakthrough product they have always dreamed of.

One Alibre customer, Jon Henderson, President of Sienco, Inc. (www.sienco.com) even brought a recently designed and manufactured medical measurement device by our booth to show us. Stephen Luse President of Ortho Kinetics, JoeCardoza President of EZ Connector Inc., and John Sylora President of Universal Multimedia Inc. all came by, as did many others. All in all, many great examples of entrepreneurial engineers living the dream of creating and manufacturing products that form the backbone of their successful businesses.