We just released more news about Solid Edge and Local Motors.  Not only do we have a new product called Solid Edge Design1 which we have already talked about, you can now get other levels of Solid Edge via a monthly subscription. Here is the press release if you want to read more:

First-Ever Monthly Subscription Model of Targeted Solid Edge Offerings Available Now to Local Motors Community

The whole combination of new products, crowdsourcing, enthusiasts, subscriptions, pricing, and functionality in our latest endeavor has led to a lot of chatter on the web. Do the people in these new environments need different tools than the typical CAD customer?  Exactly what is an enthusiast and are there other new personas out there? Is all this just marketing that will die away?  Or does it represent some coming shift in the way companies do business? There are 100 more questions too and they make for entertaining reading on the web (I’ll add a few links at the end of this post if you want to read them).

What I can say is this.  Having more options is generally good.  Prior to Siemens PLM Software and Local Motors getting together, someone working with Local Motors had the option between a limited functionality free tool and a full function CAD tool that was beyond the reach of their budget.  Now there is a spectrum of options. Prior to this partnership, getting access to a high end CAD tool for a just a month or so was not possible.  Now it is. And, with all respect to the “Cloud”, these are not Cloud tools. You can run them while on an airplane or disconnected from the web just like the existing Solid Edge.

Will the idea of subscriptions expand beyond Local Motors? I can’t say but I do know we are listening closely to our customers and partners.  If any bloggers want to write about this, that would be interesting too!

So what is next?

On twitter, I asked about what else I might write about and got a couple requests to know more about the types of people getting started with Solid Edge at Local Motors (if you are one of them call me!). I’ve also seen a few interesting question on blog posts in some of the links below. If some other topic is interesting to you, let me know.

As for what is next with Local Motors and Siemens PLM Software, you will just have to wait and see

The Latest News:

SolidEdge offers Monthly Subscriptions – Matt Lombard

Crowdsourcing Creates CAD Groundswell – DesignNews – Beth Stackpole

2011 News and Opinions

The News on Local Motors is out… or is it? – LM Series Part 3 (obviously, it wasn’t all out yet )

Manufacturing Crowd-Sourcing and Cloud PLM Opportunity- Beyond PLM – Oleg Shilovitskyy

Solid Edge continues to make noise – Matt Lombard

Solid Edge Design1 And Local Motors – Deelip Menezes

Solid Edge Design1, an Exclusive Product for Local Motors Members – Desktop Engineering – Kenneth Wong

Younomy interview with – John Fox, Vice President, Velocity Series, Siemens PLM Software

Introducing Solid Edge Design1; the First Easy-to-Afford Professional CAD Software for Design and Engineering Enthusiasts Local Motors launches Solid Edge Design1 – Susan Cinadr (Includes Youtube video interview we did at LM)

Siemens Introduces Solid Edge Design1 to Local Motors Community… Here’s the Catch. – Josh Mings

Siemens and Local Motors Team Up – Scott Wertel

Siemens PLM vs Local Motors V2: Solid Edge Design1 – Al Dean

Siemens PLM and Local Motors – Evan Yares

Introduction to Local Motors – LM Series Part I

The SEMA Automotive Show – LM Series Part 2

(MB update 1/15/12:  I missed a post from Oleg a few weeks ago which I added above)

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Tags: CAD, Co-creation, collaboration, crowd source, crowdsourcing, Design1, enthusiast, innovation, Local Motors, social media, Solid Edge, Velocity Series