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Democratising CAD!

By Niranjan Mudholkar,

Added 16 May 2016

Imagine a CAD system that lets you work remotely; in fact, you can even call up your model on your laptop or tablet. And you can also make a quick edit on your phone while waiting at the airport. John McEleney, Co-Founder & CEO, Onshape, says it is already happening!

Honestly, this seems to be a very liberating idea in the sense that you have actually made 3D design accessible and available to everybody who wants to use it in a way never done before. Small & medium enterprises (SMEs) will obviously be your key target now that you have levelled the playing field for them. Isn't it?
We are proud that Onshape is democratising CAD, making it available to entrepreneurs who otherwise could not afford to spend $5,000 or more per seat of CAD, plus annual upgrade fees, IT services and the cost of expensive hardware.

On a tight budget, Onshape's $100 monthly Professional Plan allows startups and early-stage companies to devote their resources to other areas needed for growth. However, the competitive advantages of full-cloud CAD extend far beyond the obvious upfront costs. The time-saving and security benefits of Onshape are appealing to companies of all sizes: from startups to multinational enterprises.

But does it mean that large enterprises will not touch your product? How do you perceive this aspect?
Successful enterprises stay successful by keeping ahead of the curve with new technologies. Onshape has an Enterprise Plan for large-scale deployments and is working with a number of companies right now on pilot programs. With design and manufacturing teams spread across the world, enterprises have the most to gain from Onshape's simultaneous collaboration.

Our built-in data management has also made costly and cumbersome PDM systems obsolete. And lastly, because Onshape does not use files - your data and CAD system live in one central place in the cloud - there are no loose uncontrolled copies of your IP floating around. You can grant and withdraw access to your CAD models at anytime.

What more can we expect from Onshape in the time to come?
Every few weeks, Onshape users enjoy new features and enhancements - automatically upgraded in the cloud. You can keep track of all the latest improvements by subscribing to our "What's New?" blog posts. This is also an especially exciting time for Onshape. We're about to release FeatureScript, a new programming language that enables you to create new built-in Onshape features or modify existing ones (we'll be sharing our source code). This is the same language our developers use to build Onshape and we're looking forward to seeing you help shape the future of full-cloud CAD. Stay tuned!
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