SolidWorks Acquires CircuitWorks

It definitely took long enough. I started using SolidWorks about 10 years ago, SW98. They were the newest and hottest thing to hit the CAE market and they were a super aggressive sales machine. They could do 70-80% of what the big boys could do and everything else they signed up partners to complete the whole package.

Seemed like everyone scrambled to become a "gold partner" (fully integrated into the the SW GUI). It also seemed like a mad scramble to get "....Works" into your name before the next guy. So, there was CosmosWorks, PDMWorks, CAMWorks, DriveWorks, FloWorks etc.. Over the years, SW slowly just acquired the best (I guess) of the partners and offered them direct. Not exactly sure how the other Partners feel about that, but whatever.

So, low and behold there was CircuitWorks from PriWare. Cool little plug-in that can translate ECAD data to MCAD data with a click of a button. Worked pretty slick. You could even have much more sophisticated parts in a library and the actual capacitor would be called out etc.

I wonder if PTC's big fuss about ECAD integration in WF4 had anything to do with the motivation to acquire Priware? Not sure it matters.

As a current SW user and a guy that supports SW users, I am thrilled that they can now gain access to their ECAD data as part of the core license. Especially for people that are doing electronics cooling. You just made our lives easier. Thanks!