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The Hidden Cost of Swapping CAD Kernels from the Schnitger Corporation

Why should you care about what CAD kernel your vendor uses – and why do you need to know their long-term kernel strategy? This report from the Schnitger Corporation, a market analysis firm specializing in engineering software, explains the importance of the kernel, the costs involved in switching CAD kernels, and the potential disruption and uncertainty an unclear future might cause.

The CAD system’s geometric kernel is its heart, brains, and engine. Kernels act as the bridge between keyboard, mouse and display, and the computer’s processor. The kernel turns complex commands such as “Change the dimension of the flange” into machine-intelligible instructions and collects the result for display, through the application, back to the user.If your vendor relies on more than one kernel or plans to move to a different kernel in the future, the costs of that conversion could impact your bottom line. A vendor’s decision to change the kernel in a CAD system will affect all users, both those who stay with that CAD tool and those who move to a new vendor.Download the updated report, New Math: The Hidden Cost of Swapping CAD Kernels, today, to understand why a vendor would switch kernels and what it means to you – including how to calculate the costs – both obvious and hidden – of a potential kernel change.

In this report:

  • What is a modeling kernel?
  • A brief history of CAD kernels
  • Why a vendor would change kernels
  • The impact on CAD users
  • A framework for considering costs

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