I'm at the SolidWorks 2009 conference in Orlando, Florida, looking out my hotel room window, which oversees a lake lined with palm trees, the Swan Resort with giant statures of swans on its rooftop, and blue, sunny skys. I heard it is warmer in Cleveland, but I am in no rush to get back home to snow, ice, and near zero temperatures.
Yesterday, I spoke with Haruyoshi Iida, President and CEO of SolidWorks Japan K.K. He says the CAD system first came to Japan in 1995 when Jon Hershtik made sure to introduce a localized version for the language. Interestingly, SolidWorks has an large presense in Japan, he says, with about 80,000 seats, 40,000 of which are commercial. Mr. Iida says Japan has 300,000 manufacturing companies, mostly heavy industry. Many of these companies still use 2D, but industry is slowly moving to 3D. He says Japanese companies are not "in a big rush."