An interview with SolidACE's CEO, Dr. Vladimir Popov

International Metalworking News- Middle East was able to meet with Dr. Vladimir Popov, CEO of SolidACE Ltd, during the SolidWorks World 2010 conference in Anaheim, California. Here are excerpts from the interview: IMNE: Dr. Popov, what your company, SolidACE, does at SolidWorks World 2010, and what is BuiltWorks 2010 for? Dr. Popov: SolidACE is the authorised SolidWorks Solution Partner, creating applications within SolidWorks environment for Structural, Plant and AEC industries. Here at Partner Pavilion we are exhibiting our brand new flagship product for structural steel design - BuiltWorks 2010. This product is the SolidWorks add-on extending the native SolidWorks functionality to meet the structural steel industrial standards and requirements, automating the specific industrial workflows. This year SolidWorks Corporation is putting remarkable effort to enter new for SolidWorks markets, such as Plant and AE design industries. Therefore SolidACE was granted an opportunity to present our SolidWorks based Structural industry solutions to SolidWorks Plant Design Advisory Board and meet selected SolidWorks value added resellers and territorial technical managers. During the Conference we also will be holding several breakout sessions for attendees interested in learning more about SolidWorks?role in plant design. IMNE: Tell us about your market. Dr. Popov: SolidACE is a new company, established on November 7, 2008. However, SolidACE has a long-term deep industry knowledge background: the co-founder of SolidACE, company IN RE, which is also SolidWorks reseller in Lithuania, has been creating structural design applications for over 10 years now. This long-term experiences deep professional knowledge within the structural industry all owed SolidACE to develop BuiltWorks in a record short time: first commercial version of BuiltWorks 2010 was released in November 2009, after one year from the date the company was established. Since we are a new company with a brand new product, we are just entering the markets worldwide. We have sales in the U.S., representatives in North Europe. In Asia/Middle East region, we have already signed the reseller agreement with an Indian company, but it is just a beginning. IMNE: Tell us a bit about your research efforts in Asia/Middle East? Dr. Popov: In terms of software usage, we already have the user interface of BuiltWorks 2010 translated to Chinese and Japan languages, and the future development is aimed in adding more languages for BuiltWorks interface in these regions. The next main direction of further R&D for Asian/Middle East markets is creating the libraries of steel material section profiles according to national or regional standards. Finally, BuiltWorks functionality is targeted to full analysis and design lifecycle, it is important also to have the integration of BuiltWorks with local applications for structural analysis, and we are ready therefore to establish the cooperation with market leaders of such applications in these regions. IMNE: Define SolidACE. What can BuiltWorks offer the Middle East/Asia market? Dr. Popov: BuiltWorks provides a toolset for designing the steel structures i n SolidWorks CAD environment, which initially was dedicated mostly for mechanical design. The target markets and application areas for BuiltWorks are: * Plant and Process (primary target market for BuiltWorks) - to develop models for process related structural requirements: wide range of industrial buildings, equipment supporting, rig structures, pipe racks. * Heavy machinery and smaller machines markets - to develop welded and bolted supporting frames for machine tools, equipment, transportation lines, conveyors and so forth. * Offshore, transport, utilities, and telecom, electric markets - for all forms of support and ancillary structures: towers, cranes and gantry structures, and similar snike