T-FLEX Parametric CAD

Apparently, there a Russian company called Top Systems which develops and sells a full blown 3D Parametric CAD and 2D Drafting system, including CAM, motion simulation, FEA and an SQL based PDM system. And I never heard about them till yesterday. I don’t believe I have been living under a stone these past few years, but things like these give me a feeling that I have.

They call their product “T-FLEX Parametric CAD” and it has been around for quite a while. They are going to release version 11 soon. A Google search for “T-FLEX” didn’t yield much. TenLinks has just three press releases from them, the last one being more than six months old. A search for “T-FLEX” in Ralph Grabowski’s blog shows just one entry, and that too as a comment made by Evan Yares two years ago. And to top it off, the address listed at their web site is a PO Box address. I know some companies want to keep a low profile. But these guys seem to be taking it to the extreme.

According to their web site, “Current and potential customers most generally compare the features of T-FLEX against the features of SolidWorks, Inventor, Solid Edge, UGS NX, Catia, Pro/ENGINEER.” T-FLEX is built using the Parasolid kernel licensed from UGS (now Siemens). So their software should be a pretty powerful modeler at a minimum.

I was enlightened about their existence by their Indian distributor who wanted to know whether I was interested in reselling T-FLEX in my area. I already have a tough time selling my own software. I’m not sure I want to try selling someone else’s, especially when it costs about $4500 a license and when I haven’t noticed it in all these years.