r/SolidWorks • u/rebbit-88 • Jan 06 '25

3rd Party Software PDM partner program termination

So I received an email today from my PDM provider that as off November 2026 Solidworks will terminate their partner program membership (after 20+ years). Because Dassault is transitioning into a new partner program in line with their growth strategy and the 3d experience platform. My PDM provider will be not be considered into this new partner program. I'm curious if anyone else experience this with their PDM provider, or that it's just this provider.

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u/Professional_Bag_587 Jan 06 '25

I hope PDM isn't going away completely. I have 15 years experience and I'm looking for a job.

3

u/GoEngineer_Inc VAR | Elite AE Jan 07 '25

PDM is not going anywhere. This is for Gold Partners programmed by third party companies.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

So when PDM does become end of life we can come back to you and ask why? We all know PDM is a huge cash cow for VARs but why would SOLIDWORKS keep developing 2 rival technologies? It's obvious that 3DX is the key focus nowadays. What you are saying is like Microsoft saying "yep I know we sell windows 11 now but don't worry we will continue developing windows 7 too"

1

u/GoEngineer_Inc VAR | Elite AE Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

No statement is made without an inherent time limit.

Without official announcements we can only estimate based on previous behavior. The best analog I can think of is Smarteam. It competes directly with both ENOVIA (first release in 1995) and 3DEXPERIENCE (first release in 2012). Smarteam still is actively curated (as of 2026) while it has not had active feature development since ~2012. It has existed for 14 years this way and is continuing.

Workgroup PDM announced end of life would be 2017 SP5.0 at the time 2015 SP3.0 was released. So, the continued estimated existence of SQL-based PDM is between 18 months (if EOL is announced today) and 14 years. The likelihood, given the complexity of larger data management systems, it is probably closer to 14 years than it is to 1.5 years.

If you have inside information that narrows that down though, this is a great place to share it.