Siemens has just announced the Student Edition of its flagship NX software. On his recent blog post, Jerry Sarfati (NX Marketing Manager at Siemens) said:
Siemens PLM Software has a very strong and active academic program, serving more than a million students annually at more than 10,000 partner institutions, offering software for use at every academic level. However, we have not provided a solution for individual students who wished to purchase, learn and use NX. Recently, we have addressed this need, and we are pleased to announce the NX Student Edition.
The NX Student Edition has been developed as a single-user solution. The Student Edition includes the complete suite of NX modeling, drafting, assemblies, and rendering capabilities, with NX Product Template Studio, complete documentation and self-teaching aids. NX Student Edition is delivered with a simple license install and a click-wrap license agreement.
The NX Student Edition is available initially through a specialist academic reseller, JourneyEd, and is listed on their websites, which include:
JourneyEd – http://www.journeyed.com/item/Siemens/NX+6/100965802
Academic Superstore – http://www.academicsuperstore.com/products/Siemens/NX+6/1307799An international company, JourneyEd will handle all aspects of the transaction, including verification of student credentials and payments via credit cards or PayPal. JourneyEd will also promote NX Student Edition in their physical catalogs.
NX Student Edition is not intended to replace the existing academic solutions, but to supplement them. We believe it will help increase the availability of NX trained students in the future.
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Interesting move. One thing I did find very amusing was the discount that Students now receive on the package. A whopping 99% off the retail list price (which is quoted as $20,775.05). There’s no mention of what the limitations are for the Student version (some restrict the functionality, some add watermarks to drawings), how long it’s active for (a year is typical) and whether its interoperable with commerical licenses of the software (many are not, using encryption or different formats). It is worth noting that the offering is based on NX 6, rather than the latest 7.0 release and that it’s Windows only at present – and it’s not clear whether this is North America or a global initiative.
I’ve never been a huge fan of seeing companies charge for Student licenses of their software. For students, money is tight and academic versions are about building both the next generation of users and the next generation of customers – it’s an investment. Some vendors give away their software for free if you have an academic email address (Autodesk) while others charge a nominal fee. NX 6 Student Edition is affordable at $139.95. Oddly, the Solid Edge Student version is 50 bucks more.
