A Conversation With Shyamal Roy – Part 2

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Deelip: How do you know that your solution is the right one? How many people are using it?

Shyamal: Our solution is the right one because it works, it is affordable, it enables users to do the engineering before committing to the design, and it enables users to leverage their existing expertise in CAD and Microsoft Office tools. Plus we heavily exploit the net to deliver and support the software and provide free training. Our customer base now is in the low 5 digits and includes companies in virtually all segments of the manufacturing industry. You can see a partial listing of our esteemed customers here.

Since I am privately funded, I can be patient about the velocity of our revenue.

Deelip: The free Solid Edge 2D comes with a goal seek feature, which is quite similar to your backsolving technology. Do you wish to comment on that?

Shyamal: Curiously, the Goal Seek feature in Solid Edge appeared a few months after I opened our kimono to D-cubed a few years back when there was a discussion of possible acquisition of my company. I am not insinuating anything here because they may have been working on this on their own – but the timing of the availability of the feature in Solid Edge was interesting.

By definition, a bicycle and the Boeing 747 are both transportation devices – they take people from point A to point B.  Likewise Goal Seek in Solid Edge 2D, and Goal Seek in GrafiCalc are both behavioral modeling facilities but capabilities of the products are substantially different. From what I have seen, the Goal Seek feature in Solid Edge 2D can backsolve geometry to satisfy a design goal that can be optimized against the calculated area of a shape only. Whereas GrafiCalc allows users to backsolve geometry to satisfy any measured or calculated design goal against any given shape, position, and fit criteria.

Deelip, here is an open challenge – when geometry and mathematical issues are inseparable in a design challenge, GrafiCalc will deliver the answer in less time than any known method.

Deelip: A common criticism of your product is that it employs a hopelessly outdated user interface.

Shyamal: GrafiCalc user interface is not antiquated – it is “timeless”. It allows users to do what they want to do quickly and easily. Besides if the user is familiar with any CAD sketcher and knows how to use Excel, he/she is “already trained” on how to use GrafiCalc. To me, it is not what the user interface looks like that is important; I care about how it covers the depth and domain of the application. Just like everything else I base our development activity on inputs from our lighthouse customers. And so far we are really good in this aspect.

Deelip: Also the fact that you do not offer a trial and expect people to buy your product by watching a video. What do you say to that?

Shyamal: This is not true. The user can also see 21 video training modules in our website that shows how every feature works. Besides the product price is low enough for any user to take the reasonable risk for substantial potential returns. We make painkillers and “smart” users can experience the value of our solution in our demos quickly and conveniently.

Deelip, I seek your and other esteemed industry-observers assistance to spread the news about our cure! Latest product information is available at www.inventbetter.com.