"It won't come as a surprise to many that Cloud Computing has influenced the next version of SolidWorks," he says.

"There are several new technology trends that could potentially impact the way we work, but few are more significant that the 'decentralised' approach of Cloud Computing. Collaboration is never far from the top of the list of feature requests for SolidWorks, and in Cloud Computing we have a platform ideally-suited to large-scale collaboration.

"The biggest plus of hosting SolidWorks in the 'Cloud' will be the no-hassle product updates that will free many of our customers from the cycle of regular patches and updates they require to keep their versions current," he adds. "This will also free up our trainers and application engineers to spend more time with customers, and to work proactively to improve the SolidWorks experience."

Max says that while new Cloud-aware features will be baked into SolidWorks 2011, don't expect customers to flock en-masse to using them.

"Cloud Computing is heavily reliant on a fast and stable broadband infrastructure to be effective, and to be honest we're not there yet in Australia, or anywhere else, to open up the product to widespread Cloud adoption," he says. "In Australia, the National Broadband Network, and similar initiatives in New Zealand, will make fast broadband available to more and more businesses and individuals, but it will be a good few years at least before we can all log in to a remote version of SolidWorks and share information with customers and partners around the world."

Aside from the Cloud, other features expected to debut in SolidWorks 2011 include a brand new flythrough camera module for Animator, and better integration with Photoview 360 that promises much-improved rendering speed and quality.

"More than half the development effort has gone into making SolidWorks 2011 the fastest and most reliable version ever, but that's not to say we won't see some new eyebrow-raising features," says Piper. "The new walkthrough camera and PhotoView 360 integration fall into that category, making SolidWorks output more appealing and interactive than ever before."

The Intercad training and support team is already hard at work on documenting the new features of SolidWorks 2011, and sharing the information with our customers. Stay tuned as we bring you more up-to-the-minute updates as we get them.